SEXUAL ASSAULT REPORT The Dorothy System: Tracking Nursing Home Staff Who Abuse Patients

On April 14, 1998, Texas Health Enterprises. Texas largest nursing home operator, agreed to pay $4.65 million to the estate of a partially paralyzed woman who was sexually abused repeatedly by a male nurse’s aide. This was reached days after the company was found grossly negligent and ordered to pay the woman’s estate $2.75 million in actual damages for pain and suffering and mental anguish. Texas Health Enterprises, based in Denton, Texas, operates 109 facilities in Texas, including one in Midland, Texas, where the woman was a patient. The nursing home’s parent company. HEA Management Group, Inc., was also named in the suit. Fough vs. Texas Health Enterprises, Inc., No. 9540847362 (Denton County, TX District Court).
Dorothy Cooper was only 62 when, in January 1991, she suffered a stroke which subsequently resulted in her admission to the nursing home. She also suffered from diabetes, hypertension and glaucoma. Ms. Cooper, although incontinent, confined to a wheelchair and requiring assistance in dressing, was reported to be social and interactive with the nursing staff in the first two years at the nursing home, as well as alert and clear in speech and able to feed herself. However, by June of 1993, Ms. Cooper had been admitted to the hospital for acute bronchitis, chest pain, cystitis and dehydration and a diagnosis of presenile dementia was made.

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