A Guide to Preventing Theft in Nursing Homes

It is heartbreaking enough that my great uncle was abandoned by most of his family because he is not normal and hard to take care of. Uncle Billy was born with Down Syndrome and was not expected to live for more than a few years. He is now in his late 50's and seems to have a few more years in him at the least. When his parents passed away, he no longer had anybody to take care of him. While he survived decades longer than expected, he still cannot communicate with people and his parents had him isolated from the world and kept him home from school and locked in his bedroom every day. So while Uncle Billy cannot function in society, he also cannot take care of himself. So we were forced to put him into a nursing home so that he would have care 24/7.

We go see him every weekend and after noticing that his clothes were being stolen, we began taking his clothes home to be washed rather than trusting the nursing home to do it and get it all returned back to his room. It seems like every week we find at least one thing missing. As if that isn't bad enough, there are times like last weekend that we go in and find that they have taken so much that he no longer has enough clothes to get through a week. Brand new shoes, gone. A dozen pairs of pants, gone. We pick up his dirty clothes and he only has 3 pairs of pants in it and none hanging in his closet.

After having had this happened several times how and having to replace the clothes so that Uncle Billy can get through the week with enough clothes to wear, one begins to wonder what can be done about this problem. It's very clear, there is a problem here. So I start researching and I find that it's a pretty common problem among nursing homes. According to Florida Public Health Code Section 400.162 - Nursing Homes and Related Health Care Facilities - Property and personal affairs of residents, (1) "The admission of a resident to a facility and his or her presence in the facility shall not confer on the facility or its owner, administrator, employees, or representatives any authority to manage, use, or dispose of any property of the resident; nor shall such admission or presence confer on any of the aforementioned persons any authority or responsibility for the personal affairs of the resident, except that which may be necessary for the safety and orderly management of the facility." In other words, just because they live there doesn't mean they're stuff belongs to anybody else but them. So nobody should be doing anything with their personal belongs other than what's required to run the facility, like washing the laundry. Well we started taking the laundry home and washing it ourselves because of theft. Now they're just outright stealing it when they go in to change his clothes. If I had the time and training to be there to change his clothes and take care of him, trust me, he would not be in this nursing home.

A report written by Diana K Harris and Michael L Benson examining the heartbreak of theft in nursing homes states that (2) "The nursing home environment itself may contribute to an atmosphere of permissiveness about theft. For example, we have found that some employees rationalize stealing by saying to themselves and one anohter that the patient is mentally incompetent and will not miss some items." My Uncle has Down Syndrome, that doesn't make him blind nor dumb. He's almost 60 years old, he knows that he should have clothes to wear, he knows that his clothes go in the closet as he watches his family hang them for him every week. He knows my name, he knows my sons name and my parents names. He knows that pinching nurses on the butt is flirty and he knows to stop when he's asked not to do it. Yeah, I think he knows more than anybody gives him credit for. His problem is that he can't communicate, not that he can't learn. Other patients have lost precious life momentos such as wedding rings and the like. What can be done to fix this problem?

Well, the Florida Public Health Code states, (3) "A licensee shall provide for the safekeeping of personal effects, funds, and other property of the resident in the facility. Whenever necessary for the protection of valuables, or in order to avoid unreasonable responsibility therefor, the licensee may require that such valuables be excluded or removed from the facility and kept at some place not subject to the control of the licensee. At the request of a resident, the facility shall mark the resident's personal preporty with the resident's name or another type of identification, without defacing the property. Any theft or loss of a resident's personal property shall be documented by the facility. The facility shall develop policies and procedures to minimize the risk of theft or loss of the personal property of residents. A copy of the policy shall be provided to every employee and to each resident at admission. Facility policies must include provisions related to reporting theft or loss of a resident's property to law enforcement and any facility waiver of liability for loss or theft. The facility shall post notice of these policies and procedures, and any revision thereof, in places accessible to residents." Okay so Florida requires that the facility have procedures in place an posted.

Residents and family should keep written copies of personal inventory listing all personal possessions and the list should be updated on a regular basis. Permanently label all of the personal belongings with the residents' name. This deters criminals and makes it easier to identify the missing items. Residents should check their homeowners insurance to see if coverage can be extended to their property while they are in a nursing home. All missing items should be reported immediately regardless of the items' value.

Nursing homes should reduce theft of residents belongings by taking the position that theft of residents' belongings shall be treated as a burglary rather than theft. The difference being that burglary is a felony, whereas theft is a misdemeanor. This would potentially help deter staff a little more if the nursing home took this position and followed through with it's procedures. Nursing homes should always have a theft prevention policy. Staff should always be trained on the policy as well as crime prevention. Nursing home's insurance should cover residents' losses due to theft. A staff member should be designated to review missing item reports to identify patterns that could help identify a theif or burglar.

Society needs to take control of this problem before it gets too far out of hand and stop people from being robbed of their most valued possessions and dignity when they should be receiving assisted living and healthcare.

(1) http://law.onecle.com/florida/public-health/400.162.html
(2) http://www.asaging.org/at/at-202/theft.html
(3) http://law.onecle.com/florida/public-health/400.162.html