District Attorney Investigating Reports of Elder Abuse, Neglect at Watertown Facility

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A Watertown long-term facility is being investigated after reports of elder abuse and neglect surfaced.

Vero Health & Rehab, also called the Watertown Health Center, is the focus of an investigation by the Middlesex County District Attorney’s office after Watertown Police responded to reports of abuse of residents at the facility on Coolidge Hill Road, according to a report by WBZ Channel 4 investigation.

WBZ found reports of residents who were bruised and suffered cuts, firefighters finding a man on the floor injured and asking for help, and a patient’s ventilator not working. Hundreds of 911 calls were made from the facility in the last couple years, including some from patients.

State officials found the facility was deficient in COVID-19 infection control, according to the story, and Medicare surveys rated the overall quality of care he below average.

See more details and read the entire WBZ report by clicking here.

6 thoughts on “District Attorney Investigating Reports of Elder Abuse, Neglect at Watertown Facility

  1. This is just horrible. If you can’t treat human beings with basic dignity and care, don’t work with people. It’s even more disgusting knowing the victims are elderly and many have dementia.. and they were abused in the midst of a dangerous global pandemic. I can’t imagine what families are going through. Everyone involved needs to be locked up for as long as the law allows.

    I can’t imagine how

  2. Glad someone is looking into it. My father was sent here after a hospital stay for an ulcer and was sent by ambulance to Mt Auburn & passed away within 24 hours after being exposed to Covid. I didn’t want him sent there because we haven’t had the best experiences there in the past.

  3. There should be more people working in these facilities, but the state does not provide enough Medicaid money to help keep them running well. The staff are not paid well for very difficult jobs and, therefore, they don’t always get caring people working at them and the staff don’t have enough time to take care of their patients’ daily needs. My mother was in one facility for rehab and they were giving her foods she shouldn’t have and weren’t taking care of her hygiene needs as frequently as needed. They said they didn’t have enough help. Fortunately I was able to visit her every day (pre-covid) and make sure her needs were being met better than people who had no visitors. These places are forced to hire people who think of this as just a job and not a calling to help their fellow human beings. More government funding could definitely be part of the answer to make people’s lives more comfortable as they are in the last stages of life.

  4. First responders have an obligation to report abuse, what happened here? Heads should roll for this one, seems like a lot of people are not doing their job correctly. I thought our first responders were better than this.

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