Good Samaritan Retirement Home Closed After Video of Abuse

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The Good Samaritan Retirement Home in Williston, Florida has been closed down following a video of a resident beating another resident surfaced. The video, surfaced at the end of 2017, shows a 52-year-old resident beating an 86-year-old resident.

The video shows the younger resident punching the 86-year-old with dementia more than 50 times.

In an effort to defend himself, the older man can be seen laying on the floor curled up to help fend off the attack. The abuse stemmed from a “stolen cupcake,” according to law enforcement. The abuse was in October and video was taken from the facilities’ surveillance system.

“Recent studies reveal that nursing home residents who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia at a significantly greater risk for becoming victims of neglect or outright abuse. Unfortunately, due to the challenges and characteristics that surround dementia, many cases of abuse or neglect are never detected or reported,” states Cogburn Law Offices.

The facility is the center of controversy after receiving more violations and sanctions in the past five years than any other facility in Florida. Two administrators were also arrested in December for neglect of the elderly incidents.

Officials claim that the abuse occurred within a common area in front of other residents. The area never had a staff member assigned to watch the patients. The surveillance video, which shows the abuse lasted for over two minutes, wasn’t monitored at the time of the attack.

Nursing home abuse has been the center of many CNN investigations, with one report finding that over 1,000 nursing homes have been shown to mishandle rape and sexual assault claims. The reports were from 2013 through 2016.

Good Samaritan is a facility with 45 beds. The abuse included the elderly man being punched a total of 56 times. The video shows that a staff member finally arrived 30 seconds after the abuse ended. The man in the video has been arrested several times for battery, according to local police. The local police would not release the name of the 52-year-old.

The man was not arrested following the October abuse because he was found to have “limited capacity.”

Good Samaritan’s closure was due to a series of violations. A month after the video, depicting the abuse was released, a 72-year-old resident fell and hit her head. Staff members failed to get the woman proper care or contact her daughter to tell her about the incident. The resident was found unresponsive in her bed six hours after the fall. She was taken to the hospital and died a short time after.

Nursing home abuse violations have been a major political focus since the start of the year.

The Trump Administration has relaxed penalties and fines against nursing home abuse. The Administration, heavily lobbied by the nursing home industry, is rolling back strict regulations against abuse. Fines and penalties are also being discouraged, even in the case of patient death, if the violations only occurred once.

It’s unclear at this time if Good Samaritan was fined or penalized for the abuse that occurred in October.

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Melissa Thompson

Melissa is a mother of 2, lives in Utah, and writes for a multitude of sites. She is currently the EIC of HarcourtHealth.com and writes about health, wellness, and business topics.