When elderly individuals stay at a nursing home, they put a lot of trust in the facility and its employees. A nursing home resident can suffer great harm when a nursing home or a nursing home employee betrays this trust and commits financial abuse against him or her. Thus, it is very important for nursing homes and nursing home employees to not engage in financial abuse against residents.

Recently, a sentence was issued in a financial abuse case from Missouri. The case involved a woman who worked as a bookkeeper at a nursing home in Missouri.

The woman was accused of having committed financial abuse against some of the nursing home's residents. Specifically, it was alleged that the woman stole money from these residents. Authorities also claimed that the woman took actions such as forging signatures in order to try to hide the alleged thefts.

The woman faced charges of forgery, stealing by deceit and abuse of a Medicaid recipient in connection to these allegations. The woman pled guilty to these charges.

As we mentioned above, the woman was recently given her sentence in this case. The woman was given a 7-year prison term. Reportedly, the woman will serve 120 days of shock time and then a judge will decide whether the woman will serve the sentence or will receive probation instead.

One hopes that all nursing homes do everything they reasonably can to ensure that financial abuse like that alleged in this case does not occur at their facilities. No nursing home resident should have to face financial abuse at the hands of a nursing home employee.

Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "Bookkeeper sentenced in thefts from nursing home," Feb. 3, 2012