In February, a total of six people involved in the A nursing home먹튀검증, including two patients who assaulted and killed a dementia patient named Song (85) at a nursing home in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, were handed over to the prosecution.
Gyeonggi Paju Police Station announced on the 12th that it had sent six suspects, including the director of a nursing home, to the Goyang Branch of the Uijeongbu District Prosecutor’s Office on the 10th. The police applied charges of manslaughter by negligence on the job against the director of the nursing home, the secretary, and the head of the nursing department. The two elderly patients who assaulted Song were charged with assault and death by assault, and the charges of assault and death by assault and violation of the Elderly Welfare Act were applied to the caregiver who started assaulting the patients before assaulting them. Other caregivers who neglected this were subject to administrative disposition and only fines were imposed.
Administrative authorities are also taking administrative measures, such as suspension of business for nursing homes. The Eunpyeong-gu Office in Seoul announced earlier this month that it had sent a prior notice of administrative disposition regarding the suspicion of elder abuse and whether or not it was covered up by the nursing home to the nursing home. A person in charge of the senior care team at Eunpyeong-gu Office told the <Hankyoreh>, “If we get an answer from the nursing home by the end of this month, the hearing date, we will review the response and make a decision on disposition afterwards.”
According to the Long-term Care Insurance Act for the Elderly, if a long-term care institution such as a nursing home neglects the basic protection and treatment of residents, the competent local government may suspend its business or cancel the designation.
On the night of February 18, Song, who was assaulted several times by another patient, was transferred to the hospital with symptoms of vomiting and died the next day. It was only 23 days after she was admitted to the nursing home. It was confirmed that Ms. Song was assaulted at least seven times from the first day of her admission, but the nursing home notified the bereaved family of the assault only three times, and it was found that she did not take appropriate protective measures such as separating her patients. Later, when the Paju Police Station checked the CCTV that was confiscated from the nursing home, it was revealed that the caregiver also participated in her assault on the day Song was transferred to the hospital
. The nursing home side denied the allegation of cover-up, saying, “She did not intentionally hide her video,” and she said, “It was a CCTV that was in a different location and angle, but she could not confirm it at the time.”