What did county officials and staff at the La Salle County Nursing Home do to protect female patients from sexual abuse by another resident?

The nursing home took more than a dozen steps last month after the Illinois Department of Public Health said administrators at the home failed to protect female residents from the molestations of a male resident.

The man is believed to have molested the women between Jan. 17 and May 26, with Dec. 24 marking the first documentation of the inappropriate behavior.

The state told a nursing home administrator at 3:45 p.m. Thursday, June 4, that residents were in "jeopardy" from the unidentified man. Beginning that day and continuing through Saturday, June 6, administrators took measures to eliminate the jeopardy, namely putting the man in a psychiatric facility on June 5.

There were also four staff meetings addressing such matters as abuse prevention, resident rights and incident investigation.

Female residents were also questioned and care plans for the molested women, as well as for the man, were updated. Other steps taken involved reviewing abuse reports and faxing those reports to the state health department.

Other action taken was to have the chairman of the La Salle County Board's Nursing Home Committee start directly supervising and overseeing the home's administration. The committee chairman is Gary Small, R-Utica. Small, as well as the home's medical director and nurse consultant, are also to review all complaints and concerns for immediate followup.

Since Thursday, The Times has left several phone messages for Small, but as of Tuesday afternoon he has not returned any of them.

A state inspector confirmed through interviews and review of records the home's administrators did indeed take the steps they said they did. However, the state said it will reinspect the home in coming weeks to check on implementation and effectiveness.

The home's administrator, Adrienne Erickson, is on medical leave. The assistant administrator, Cathy Harvey, will not comment.

On a scale of one to five, with five the best, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services rates the home a two.