When a family makes the decision to check a loved one into a nursing home, they hope that they are minimizing the potential harm that could befall them in as they live out their twilight years. However, a lack of supervision and insufficient background checks on the staff that cares for them has led to the residents of the homes to become easy targets for sexual predators.

Many of the 1.3 million elderly Americans currently living in nursing homes lack not only the physical ability to care for themselves, but also the mental capability to be aware of their surroundings. Memory issues and communication deficiencies make these rapes, a crime that is already extremely difficult to generate solid evidence for, even more difficult.

An example of this is the sexual assault of 83-year-old Sonya Fischer by her male caretaker, George Kpingbah at Walker Methodist Health Center in Minneapolis back in 2014. Fischer, who is afflicted with Alzheimer’s, was unable to vocalize about what was happening to her. The perpetrator was only caught when another worker walked in on them. CNN has recently discovered that he had been accused in the past of similar charges, yet was never charged. Walker Methodist suspended him while he was being investigated, but never fired him. They have refused to comment on the issue.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/02/health/nursing-home-sex-abuse-investigation/