CINCINNATI — A Cincinnati man is calling for authorities to investigate a Mount Washington assisted living facility after he said he caught a caregiver assaulting his elderly mother while she was in her bed.
The incident was captured on a security camera Joshua Gaunt said he had installed in the frail woman's private room at The Ashford earlier this week.
It shows the nursing aide berating 76-year-old Anne Brown, who suffers from advanced-stage dementia, as she seemingly refuses to get out of bed. The aide says, "Always sitting there with that dumbass look on your face."
She then proceeds to say, "You either gonna get up or you're not."
The video then shows the aide throwing something at Brown, who picks the item up and throws it back down at her side, seemingly exasperated.
The aide then picks up another of the same item and throws it directly at Brown's face. You can hear the elderly woman shout, "Oh!"
After a small kick from Brown, the aide throws a third item near her face before she sits up startled and trembling. Brown stares at the aide until the aide says, "Get your ass up."
"It's killing me. It's burned into my head. I can't get it out," Gaunt said. "It is killing me on the inside to see a helpless woman who has worked so hard her entire life to be treated like this."
Gaunt, a former certified registered nurse anesthetist, said his mother was also a nurse for most of her life. To see someone in the same trusted position do something like this has left him devastated, he said.
He uncovered video of other interactions he found concerning and inappropriate.
Gaunt said a different aide entered his mother's room early in the morning and hovered over her seemingly trying to kiss her on the cheek, a gesture the elderly woman appears to recoil from. That same aide is seen noting Brown's soiled pants, telling her to sit up so she could change them. After Brown fails to move, the aide tells her she'll just leave her like that before proceeding to walk out of the room.
Gaunt said after seeing the video of the alleged assault, he rushed to the facility and called police. He recorded the interaction that shows the officer confirming he wrote up a report with the intent to file a felony assault charge against the aide.
WCPO reached out to the facility's administrator for comment, but she declined to comment, instead referring to a publicist who represents the facility's parent company, Wallick.
A spokesperson for The Ashford did provide a statement:
"Our first concern is always the safety, health and well-being of our residents. Everyone with a family member residing with us trusts us to ensure their loved one is safe, secure and cared for. We take this trust very seriously.
"While we are unable to provide details about the allegations based on confidentiality requirements, the allegations are of grave concern. The staff member has been terminated.
"The facility team is fully cooperating with local law enforcement. We also are conducting our own investigation. The results will be shared with the Ohio Department of Health and law enforcement."
Gaunt said he wants more to be done, claiming management has allowed negligent and abusive conduct at the facility.
"I would like the whole facility investigated. I would like (the administrator) immediately terminated and I would like them to embrace transparency and accountability," he said.
Gaunt said the videos aren't just shocking because of what they show but because they were captured within just the four days the camera had been up. He fears his mother has suffered more neglect and mistreatment in the year and a half she's been a resident there. He only installed the camera because he noticed a significant decline in his mother in the past six months especially, he said.
"Everything from bruising to red marks on her arms, skin tears. Her earring was pulled off, destroying her ear and she was constantly laying in her own feces," he said.
Esther's Law was enacted in Ohio last year. It gives residents and/or resident representatives the ability to authorize and install electronic monitoring devices in resident rooms to monitor the quality of care received in the home.
But the law only extends to nursing home settings. Other homes, including assisted living facilities like The Ashford, have the discretion to set their own camera policies.
Gaunt said the day he installed a camera in his mother's room, he posted two visible signs and notified staff. He wasn't told to take the camera down until the day he complained to the administrator about his mother's alleged assault, he said.
"In my face, yelling at me, telling me I cannot film in a private facility," Gaunt said.
Linda Kerdolff, Pro Senior's program director of long-term care ombudsmen, said when she saw the video of this alleged assault, she was shocked.
"Unacceptable and frankly disgusting," she said. "Unfortunately we at the ombudsmen program who go around to nursing homes to advocate for residents, we do see disrespect from time to time by aides and other staff members."
Kerdolff said the fact the alleged assault was caught on camera is pivotal because it's rare elder abuse allegations ever are. In the last reporting year, Pro Seniors received 45 allegations of either physical, sexual or psychological abuse of seniors in care facilities across the five Southwest Ohio counties they serve, she said. Sixteen of those claims were proven.
"We would like to see Esther's Law modified so that includes assisted living," she said. "We would like all assisted living have a policy that allow cameras, that the residents have a right to have that in their room. The cameras bring to light some things that sometimes are hidden."
Kerdolff urges any residents who feel they are suffering from elder abuse to report it. If there is fear of further abuse, there are protections in place, she said.
"It is their right and they do need to speak up. We're certain that there are things that go unreported because the residents fear retaliation. They're afraid to speak up," she said. "They can call the ombudsmen's office and be anonymous. They can also call the Ohio Department of Health and report things anonymously.
Gaunt said he plans on heading back to the facility to address more allegations and file another police report.
He said he fears his mother was too afraid to speak up but he wants to be her voice now, and hopefully be a voice for others.
"She is scared to death. She can't explain to me what happens. I have watched my mother decline from being a thriving mother and a nurse to absolutely nothing left and to think that she's so incapable and so scared and to see this torment and this abuse going on, like I mentioned before, it's killing me.
"I can only do what I can do. I love her so much," said Gaunt. "I know in my heart and from what the staff has told me there are other victims. Not just of this aide but of the administration."
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