Convicted felons could be working in your mother or father's nursing home
By Sally Kestin, Peter Franceschina and John MainesSouth Florida Sun Sentinel
September 27, 2009
More than 3,500 people with criminal records — including rape, robbery and murder — have been allowed to work with the elderly, disabled and infirm through exemptions granted by the state the past two decades, a Sun Sentinel investigation found. Hundreds more slipped through because employers failed to check their backgrounds or kept them on the job despite their criminal past.
In Palm Beach County, a woman with pending forgery charges got a job at a nursing home, where she assaulted a patient.
Glades Health Care Center in Pahokee did a background check on Phillina Anderson in 2004, but it did not turn up the charges, said Francine Hennessy, chief operating officer of the Council on Aging of Florida, Inc., which owns the facility. If it had, the nursing home would not have hired her, Hennessy said.
Anderson was still on probation in that case when she was arrested for abusing patient Cora Edwards.
Under Florida law, certain crimes disqualify someone from working with seniors or the disabled unless they obtain an exemption by showing evidence of rehabilitation.
Until this year, the disqualifying offenses did not include financial crimes that can lead to abuse and exploitation. An expanded list takes effect Thursday — eight years after a committee of prosecutors and state regulators recommended adding crimes such as burglary, fraud and forgery.
The patchwork screening system puts Florida's most vulnerable adults at risk, the Sun Sentinel found.
Abridged
SOURCE: The Sun Sentinel
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