Disgusting! Stealing from a nursing home resident...

leslie :-D · Jul 23, 2004

i do know that people do steal things from their patients.

but i've also listened to many accusations from patients/residents that were untrue, after investigation....granted too many don't get caught; but there are also many disgruntled patients out there, who will purposely try and get someone in trouble, OR who are merely confused. who knows.

alk3rainbow · Jul 23, 2004

There definately are people who will steal from residents. However, there are also a lot of residents who misplace things or imagine things or just plain out want to cause waves. Sometimes it is hard to figure out what is going on when you are dealing with people with dementia that maybe aren't all together to begin with. If someone is stealing this persons beanie babies though, perhaps their family needs to talk to the nurse and see what can be done. Maybe they can be put away in a safe secure place. For all you know, maybe his family had his beanie babies locked up as it is and the resident keeps forgetting that they are in storage and is just assuming people are stealing them. You never know.

Destinystar · Jul 23, 2004

unfortunatly some patients in nursing homes have dementia, alzheimers, and mental illnesses. these disorders can cause the patients to wander into other residents rooms and steal things its called hoarding behavior. nursing homes in california are supposed to have a theft & loss policy. when something is missing a form has to be filled out and the staff has to make an effort to find it. often time patients items wind up in the laundry and in other residents rooms. the property that is brought in is supposed to be logged into an inventory sheet and labeled. i cant recall all the details but there are instances where the facility is responsible for replacing the lost item. there are also times when a police report has to be filed. this needs to be brought to the administrator of the facilities attention so he/she can utilize there system for correcting the problem.:stone

hey peeps.
my little girl (she's almost ten), she works every day in a nursing home as a volunteer.
she told me today about one of the residents.
he collects beanie babies, and people steal them from him! she said he told her that they took his favorite (a uk one)....she said he told her it was visitors that did it!
i asked her how he knew and i don't recall what she said, but she said his beanie babies were always disappearing.....how sad.....if i could find one like that i would buy it for him.
(of course then somebody would probably steal that one, lol)

cnyrn · Jul 23, 2004

I was a manager in LTC years ago, one Christmas we all adopted residents and bought them gifts. Well, on Christmas Eve, someone went through them all, unwrapped them, took what they liked (almost everything, blankets, clothing, real nice gifts) on Christmas morning we discovered the theft, and scrambled to replace the missing gifts, which was difficult with only the mini-mart open. Never found the thieves.

nycegyrl · Jul 23, 2004

I worked in LTC and I know how things have a habit of walking off. My Grandmother lived there and one of her dresses was taken and you know she never quit talking about it. She even thinks she knows who took it. She was so upset about it. I think it was an aide that did it like Grandma said. When I was working there I was doing a roller set on a lady after her shower and I used the rollers she handed to me. She brought her own rollers. Well when I took her hair down and gave her back her rollers she told me those weren't her rollers. I gave her the wrong ones. She went to everyone that would listen to her and I walked by the beauty shop later that morning to see her in there with the Activities Director. The AD was giving her rollers from the big tray that she said were hers. She told everyone I stole from her. It was awful and very upsetting to me. I think of it sometimes and how crazy the whole thing was. But there was no talking to her about it.

Blackcat99 · Jul 23, 2004

I have heard of several incidents where resident's wedding rings have been removed from their fingers. One lady was dying of cancer and a few days before she died her husband came and told us that her wedding ring was gone. I believe there is a "special hell" waiting for creeps who steal from the elderly. I have even heard of people going to nursing homes pretending to be visitors and they go and steal stuff.

Angela Mac · Jul 26, 2004

I worked in a nursing home where the patients clothing kept disappearing. I saw several items being worn by a laundry worker. Management laughed it off. I am hoping the same laundry worker is seen by the family members of these residents. We will all see then, who gets the last laugh.

smk1, LPN · Jul 26, 2004

when i worked in assisted living we were supposed to put their initials on all laundry and personal items in permanent marker, but stuff still disppeared occasionally. I agree though that sometimes the residents are simply forgetting that they got rid of an item when they moved in or gave it away, sometimes things really are taken but you have to look at the resident that you are dealing with and ask yourself if they are a paranoid type or do they have dementia or is this a viable complaint.

mead · Jul 26, 2004

I had a resident have her necklace go missing after her bath on saturday. The kicker is ,she is very alert. I filled out our "lost or stolen " form with all the info she gave me. Guess what on sunday it turned up under the t. v. and the person who thought to look there was on shift the day befor!:angryfire :nono: No way to prove that she had taken it but it puts a cloud over all the staff. It makes my blood boil!

CHATSDALE · Jul 27, 2004

in LTC we sometimes have to take clothes off residents because another resident recognized it as their own....some people are so confused that they really don't know what is their and some of the others get very aggressive when they see something that is theirs or that they think is their own please don't let me wind up losing my facilities..i would rather get hit my 18 wheeler