Aides accused of disturbing abuse

NORTH TONAWANDA, N.Y. (WIVB) - Two nursing facility employees are accused of disturbing abuse.

The incident happened about a year ago, but the details are now just surfacing. Two employees of a Wheatfield nursing home are accused of "humiliating, distressing, and violating the dignity" of two elderly residents last April, according to State Department of Health documents obtained by News 4. The incident happened at the Northgate Healthcare Facility on Nash Road.

   >>  Read the State Health Department's Report

The documents detail disturbing allegations in which Alicia Clemens, a certified nursing assistant "took cell phone camera pictures" after she and another employee, Gloria Maxwell, brought a female patient into a room shared by a married couple. They then moved the female patient in between the couple, the documents state, and got the married man, who is legally blind and suffers from dementia, to touch the woman's shoulder, trying to convince the man and woman they were married.

The Buffalo News reports both employees were fired before the state concluded its investigation.

State Department of Health spokesperson Jeffrey Hammond tells News 4 that  the evidence did not rise to the level of criminal activity.

  >>  Last year, undercover cameras caught health care workers failing to care for nursing home patients in Albany and Williamsville

  >>  Earlier this month, a nursing home worker learned her sentence for falsifying records to conceal the neglect of a resident