Background checks are important

The nursing home industry and insurance lobbyists have fought (and continue to fight) to limit the duties of nursing homes in conducting background checks on employees.  It is ridiculous. Background checks are cheap and quick in the computer age even with the high turnover rate of employees.  Look at this story where a nursing home aide raped 90-year-old resident.. It could have been prevented if they did a background check.

William Morrison, a former aide at the Rome Memorial Hospital Residential Health Care Facility,  was convicted last month of raping and sexually assaulting a 90-year-old resident of the nursing home.

Morrison was an employee at Rome Memorial Hospital for several months before being transferred to the hospital’s affiliated 80-bed nursing home. Rome Memorial Hospital Residential Health Care Facility intended to perform a criminal background check when Morrison was hired, but it was not completed before he raped the elderly resident.

The background check would have revealed that Morrison was previously convicted for one felony and several misdemeanors in the 1990s. His last conviction was for a misdemeanor drug offense in 1999