By Chuck Goudie
Thursday, May 08, 2014
In the age where cameras are everywhere, the ABC7 I-Team exposes a place where cameras are not: Illinois nursing homes.
If family members believe a nursing home is hiding abuse, it isn’t illegal to put a camera in their loved one’s room. But the nursing home can remove the camera, or the patient. Some family members say they fear retaliation if cameras are discovered, so they don’t even put them in. Some states are considering laws to allow nursing home cameras, but Illinois isn’t one of them.
You can check on your pet and your home through your phone, and we all are watched every day on the streets, but there’s a group that remains unseen. In 2012, fearing the worst, the family of 96-year-old nursing home resident Erytha Mayberry put a camera in her room.
“We didn’t like what we saw, of course,” said Doris Racher, victim’s daughter.
What they caught on tape in Oklahoma changed state law there: an aide stuffing latex gloves into Mayberry’s mouth and pressing on her chest. She died soon after. The nursing home aide is serving a year in jail. The video outraged the public, prompting Oklahoma to permit voluntary room surveillance cameras in long term care facilities. Only three other states have similar laws.
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