As Cases Multiply, Officials Scramble to Stop Abuse of Nursing Home Residents on Social Media
When a certified nursing assistant in Hubbard, Iowa, shared a photo online in March of a nursing home resident with his pants around his ankles, his legs and hand covered in feces, the most surprising aspect of state health officials’ investigation was this: It wasn’t against the law.
The Iowa law designed to protect dependent adults from abuse was last updated in 2008, before many social media apps existed. It bars “sexual exploitation of a dependent adult by a caretaker,” which would have applied if the photo showed the resident’s genitals. It didn’t.
The nurse assistant was fired from Hubbard Care Center after a co-worker reported her to supervisors, but the state was unable to discipline her at all. She remains eligible to work in any nursing home in the state. Government documents did not name her.
“This was something no one expected,” said David Werning, a spokesman for the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals, of the case. The nurse assistant had used Snapchat to send the photo of the resident, who has dementia, to six colleagues, along with the caption “shit galore,” according to government reports.
“What we have is a very disgusting and humiliating situation,” Werning said, “but it does not meet the definition of sexual exploitation, and I think that was a surprise to everybody.”
Now Iowa officials are working to update the law to address changing technology, he said, “so we won’t be caught off-guard again.”
The Iowa incident is just one illustration of how regulators and law enforcement officials nationwide are struggling to respond when employees at long-term care facilities violate the privacy of residents by posting photos on social media websites.
In a story published last year, ProPublica identified nearly three dozen of these cases, the majority involving Snapchat, a social media service in which photos appear for a few seconds and then disappear. We’ve discovered nine more instances since then, including one in which a youth volunteer at a Colorado nursing home shared a selfie on Snapchat that showed a 108-year-old resident urinating. (You can read details of each incident here.)
Following ProPublica’s earlier coverage, Sen. Charles Grassley, the Iowa Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent letters to social media companies and federal agencies asking what they are doing to stop the abuse. He’s taken Snapchat, in particular, to task because he said its online tool for reporting suspected abuse requires the affected person to file a complaint — a near impossibility for elderly people with dementia.
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