It is hard to believe that the nursing home facilities which were created to house and care for our nation's elderly individuals sometimes engage in behaviors that are anything but caring and health oriented. It is an unfortunate fact that some nursing home facilities employ personnel who are less than caring to the elderly individuals who reside there; instead, some employees of elder care facilities are nothing but negligent and abusive to the patients/ residents of the facilities at which they work. These are cases of nursing home negligence and nursing home abuse, and they occur much more frequently than anyone would like to admit.

One of the most recent cases of nursing home abuse to occur involves a California facility where a former certified nursing assistant admitted to engaging in unethical and immoral behaviors toward an elderly dependent who lived at the care home. Shortly after the case was brought to light the male staff member pled guilty to actions of neglect and admitted to operating under circumstances that could very likely lead to great bodily harm for the unfortunate recipient of the employee's abusive behaviors. Included in his original sentencing, the male nurse is being charged for misdemeanor abuse of a dependent adult, a lewd act on a dependent adult, as well as felony sexual battery on an a victim who has been institutionalized. Although the act came as quite a shock to the nursing home world, further investigation into the matter sheds light on evidence that makes the instance unsurprising, to say the least. Investigations show that the man accused of nursing home abuse was formerly involved in an illegitimate sexual relationship with an underage girl. The unlawful relationship landed him with a two year prison sentence and registration as a sex offender. It was while he was paying time for these charges that the nursing home abuse case came to a head. Given his current circumstances, the former CNA was advised to plead guilty in an attempt to reduce the charges that would be made against him.

According to reports, the senior deputy district attorney assigned to the case called the plea bargain a "fair resolution" for both the case and the victim. However, it is questionable as to just how officials could be claiming any instance of fairness in a case regarding abusive behaviors to an undeserving elderly individual. It would be fair to say that the deal may prove to be beneficial to the former CNA who is now facing multiple charges in multiple areas of the law; it is unclear how it will be at all fair to the victim(s) of the incident. In fact, the argument could be taken one step more to say that further victimization is occurring by not addressing the matter to the full extent of the offense. The responsible subject may have pled guilty, thereby reducing the pending charges in his name, but the victim is in no way set to benefit or gain from the plea bargain made in the case.

It is hard to see how cases of nursing home abuse and neglect will cease to continue when those who are charged with offenses of this nature are not appropriately punished for the crimes that have been made in their name. As long as cases such as the California nursing home abuse case described above continue to persist, then it is safe to assume that so too will future instances of nursing home abuse and/ or neglect. Without proper punishment, there is no telling just how far the personnel and management of nursing home care facilities might go when cutting corners, reacting abusively, or making sexual advances on the residents they are meant to be providing care to. Until plea deals such as that described above are stopped and offenders are punished with consequences befitting the crime, it is not unlikely that the abuses within nursing home care facilities will continue. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that these cases are not only attended to by criminal defense attorneys representing the accused criminal offender, but also by personal injury attorneys who can represent the victims who have been wrongfully harmed. Right now, there seems to be more attention being paid to the potentially guilty subjects of these cases; there needs to be more attention paid to those who have been wrongfully harmed. Only with the professional attention of a skilled personal injury lawyer will these cases begin to be recognized for the wrongs inherent in them.