美国国家公共电台 NPR Serious Nursing Home Abuse Often Not Reported To Police, Federal Investigators Find

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

By law, serious cases of abuse in nursing homes have to be turned over to the police. But as NPR's Ina Jaffe reports, that rarely happens.

INA JAFFE, BYLINE¹: We're talking about cases of abuse serious enough to send someone to the emergency room, like the woman who was left deeply bruised² after being sexually assaulted at her nursing home. Federal law says that incident should've been reported to the police within two hours. But the nursing home didn't do that, says Curtis Roy, an assistant regional inspector³ general in the Department of Health and Human Services.

CURTIS ROY: They cleaned off the victim, and in doing so, they destroyed all of the evidence that law enforcement could have used as part of an investigation⁴ into this crime.

JAFFE: Roy says that even after the victim's family notified the police, the nursing home tried to cover it up.

ROY: They went so far as to contact the local police department to tell them that they did not need to come out to the facility to conduct an investigation.

JAFFE: In a recent two-year period, Curtis Roy and his team of investigators⁵ found 134 cases of abuse of nursing home residents that were severe enough to send them to the emergency room. The vast majority of the cases involve sexual assault.

ROY: There's never an excuse to allow somebody to suffer this kind of torment⁶.

JAFFE: The incidents were spread across 33 states. More than a quarter of the cases were never reported to local law enforcement. Today's alert from the inspector general's office says that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which regulate nursing homes, need to do more to track these cases of abuse. The alert suggests that the agency should do what Curtis Roy's investigators did - cross-reference Medicare claims from nursing home residents with their claims from the emergency room.

ROY: We've got to do a better job of rooting this out of our health care system.

JAFFE: The information released this morning is part of a larger investigation into the reporting of nursing home abuse. One thing investigators don't know yet is whether the nursing homes where the abuses took place were ever fined or punished in any way. That will be part of the inspector general's full report, expected in about a year. Ina Jaffe, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF MESSAGE TO BEARS' "BIRD'S TAIL")

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 bruised   

[医]青肿的，瘀紫的

参考例句：

• his bruised and bloodied nose 他沾满血的青肿的鼻子
• She had slipped and badly bruised her face. 她滑了一跤，摔得鼻青脸肿。

3 inspector   

n.检查员，监察员，视察员

参考例句：

• The inspector was interested in everything pertaining to the school.视察员对有关学校的一切都感兴趣。
• The inspector was shining a flashlight onto the tickets.查票员打着手电筒查看车票。

4 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

5 investigators   

n.调查者，审查者( investigator的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• This memo could be the smoking gun that investigators have been looking for. 这份备忘录可能是调查人员一直在寻找的证据。
• The team consisted of six investigators and two secretaries. 这个团队由六个调查人员和两个秘书组成。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 torment   

n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠

参考例句：

• He has never suffered the torment of rejection.他从未经受过遭人拒绝的痛苦。
• Now nothing aggravates me more than when people torment each other.没有什么东西比人们的互相折磨更使我愤怒。