Thread: IA-New policy conceals identities of abusers

New policy conceals identities of abusers

By CLARK KAUFFMAN • ckauffman@dmreg.com • © 2008, Des Moines Register and Tribune Company • May 18, 2008

A disabled Iowan dies after his wheelchair rolls out of a parked van at a care center and tips over.

An elderly woman slips on a pool of urine in a nursing home and breaks her leg.

A medication aide takes $1,000 from two elderly residents of an Iowa nursing home.


In each case, the state found that abuse had taken place in a state- licensed care center. And in each case, an administrative law judge sealed the recordings of public hearings in the cases and ordered the names of the abusers and the care facilities to be kept secret.

"The system works against the public's right to know," said John Tapscott of Indianola, a former member of the Iowa Legislature and now an advocate for senior citizens.

"If I were to put a family member in a nursing home and there was abuse in that facility, I would hate to think I'd never hear about it because a judge had sealed the record."

The secrecy stems from a new interpretation of a 17-year-old law dealing with the abuse of elderly or handicapped Iowans living in nursing homes. The new policy is the result of a legal analysis by Iowa Workforce Development judges and by Attorney General Tom Miller's staff.

In the past, public access to abuse information in Iowa Workforce Development records has proved helpful to state inspectors and to the operators of Iowa nursing homes.

In 2006, for example, the Iowa Veterans Home in Marshalltown hired Shannon Lennie to work with its residents. Lennie had recently been fired from the nearby Grandview Heights nursing home, where she was accused of neglect, failure to monitor residents' conditions, and failure to give patients their medications.

Officials of the veterans home learned of Lennie's past when The Des Moines Register, using information in Workforce Development records, reported the circumstances of her firing from Grandview Heights. The veterans home fired Lennie after reading the newspaper article.

But under the state's new policy, the public will no longer be able to use those Workforce Development records to find out the names of abusers or their employers. All parties named in the records - and even the cities where the abuse took place - are being kept secret.

This change in policy has a strange, and unintended, consequence:

The names of Iowans who are judged to be abusers of the elderly or the disabled are now being kept secret by Workforce Development, while the names of people cleared of abuse are considered public by the agency.


After 17 years, state moves toward secrecy

The new policy affects public hearings that Workforce Development holds on fired caregivers' requests for unemployment benefits. Records from thousands of other unemployment hearings, with key details intact, are routinely made public each year.

But now, if a Workforce Development administrative law judge hears testimony that an allegation of abuse was confirmed by the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals, the judge will seal the recordings of the hearings, the names of the employer and the employee, and any exhibits that are submitted during the hearings.

The judges are relying on a 1991 state law that says they must keep secret "abuse information" related to the state's confidential registry of known abusers. In recent months, the judges and the attorney general's office have taken a broad view of that law's ban on the disclosure of "abuse information."

In some cases, details of the abuse can be gleaned from other public documents, such as police reports, court documents or the state's nursing home inspection reports.

But the attorney general's new interpretation of the law suggests that the law could be used to restrict Iowans' access to some of those other records.

"We are working on these issues and wrestling with the most appropriate application of the law to various situations," said Bob Brammer, Attorney General Tom Miller's spokesman. "We are working with several state departments now to consider how the law should be applied in general, and in various case-by-case applications - in particular, how it applies in public administrative proceedings such as employment termination, unemployment compensation, professional licensing, and others."

Dan Anderson, the chief administrative law judge at Workforce Development, points out that while the law restricts access to abuse information, the law also says the restriction is intended to protect the identities of the elderly or disabled victims - not the accused perpetrators or the care facilities where they work.

He said the judges have been thinking about their handling of these cases for months and are discussing the matter with the attorney general's office.

"I cannot say at the moment when or how this discussion will end," Anderson said. "But you have my word on this: If wiser people than I convince me that we are being unnecessarily cautious in how we (handle) our decisions and restrict access to our hearing records, we will be happy to change."

Brammer said the attorney general's office has "encouraged a cautious approach" while state lawyers review the matter.


Nursing home reports still have abuse details

One example of that "cautious approach" involves the Department of Inspections and Appeals, which is responsible for inspecting Iowa's nursing homes.

The Des Moines Register has asked the department whether its online, public archive of 18,600 nursing home inspection reports includes information on four recent abuse cases where Iowa Workforce Development was keeping secret the names of all parties.

The inspections department consulted with Assistant Attorney General John Lundquist, who advised the department that the disclosure of any such public records could enable the public or journalists to piece together a more complete picture of an abuse case, defeating the state's new efforts to keep that information confidential.

Dean Lerner, the director of the inspections department, said it is still not clear whether his staff can point the Register to certain documents in his department's public archive since the records might then be used to "put two and two together" about an abuse case.

In the meantime, the abuse information remains off-limits to the public.

Tapscott said that is a concern because the new policy prevents people from finding out where abuse is occurring in Iowa nursing homes and who is responsible for such abuse — defeating a key reason for government.

"The purpose of government is to protect all of its citizens," Tapscott said.

Lerner said he recognizes the value of sharing abuse information with seniors, the disabled and their families.

"I'd be inclined to want to give you that information if I can," Lerner said. "We do want to disclose as much information as we possibly can."

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/p ... /805180337

In each case, the state found that abuse had taken place in a state- licensed care center. And in each case, an administrative law judge sealed the recordings of public hearings in the cases and ordered the names of the abusers and the care facilities to be kept secret.

This is scarey.......