WORD COUNT 521                                                                                                                                                                            MAY 27, 2009

ABUSE FREQUENTLY AGAINST ELDERLY WOMEN – by Martha Burk

The month of May is almost behind us, and with it the flowers and candy many of us showered on our mothers earlier in the month to mark Mother’s Day. But many older mothers are getting showered with attention of another kind – abuse. Take the case of Ruth, an 89-year-old woman who was in fairly good health when she entered an Iowa nursing home for physical therapy in 2008. When she left to go home 25 days later, Ruth’s leg was rotting and consumed by gangrene. She died three months later. State and federal officials rightly called it neglect, and fined the nursing home $112,650. 

The nursing home owner is of course contesting the ruling. He runs a lobbying organization and is complaining about the fine to Iowa legislators, accusing the inspections department of “flogging” nursing homes and blocking seniors’ access to care by imposing huge fines. 

Ruth’s case, highlighted in “Elder Abuse: A Women’s Issue,” the annual Mother’s Day report from the Older Women’s League (OWL), is by no means an isolated one. Domestic and institutional elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation cause serious harm to anywhere from 500,000 to 5 million individuals in the United States every year. Females make up approximately 66 percent of the victims. That means up to 3 million older women are battered, beaten, swindled, or neglected by relatives and so-called caregivers.  

It’s a problem that has been recognized since at least the 1980s. But 25 years of congressional hearings on its devastating effects have produced no federal law to address the problem in a comprehensive manner, even though elder-battering has been called both a disgrace and a “burgeoning national scandal.” Despite continued efforts, one by Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, the Elder Abuse Prevention Act of 2006 and the Elder Justice Act of 2008 failed to pass under GOP control of Congress.  

Even without legislation, one would think our national institutions might be addressing the issue. Not so. Adult Protective Services, the front line responder to elder abuse under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, does not have a federal office, federal standards, oversight, training, data collection or reliable funding. What’s worse, there is not a single federal employee working full-time on elder abuse in America. 

In late March, the Elder Justice Act was introduced as S. 795 again by Senators Hatch and Lincoln (D-Ark.). In addition, Senator Kohl (D-Wisc.) reintroduced his Patient Safety Act as S. 631. Both bills await action in the Senate Finance Committee. Meanwhile on the House side, its version of the Elder Justice Act was introduced by Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) as H.R. 2006 in mid-April.  

Overall prospects for final action on the Elder Justice Act are promising due to the Obama administration’s expected support. Let’s hope so. Otherwise, the states will continue to craft a hodgepodge of laws and regulations, meaning the safety of elderly women is subject to geography and the lobbying power of corporate nursing homes.  

OWL’s report documents the need for comprehensive elder abuse prevention laws -- using the models of prevention of violence against women and of child abuse. It’s about time. It’s about our mothers.  

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Martha Burk is the author of “Cult of Power: Sex Discrimination in Corporate America and What Can Be Done About It,” just out from Scribner. She is director, Corporate Accountability Project, National Council of Women’s Organizations. www.womensorganizations.org.  A photo of Martha Burk is available CLICK HERE 

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