I disagree with the family's decision to bring the patient's jewelry to the hospital - why not place it in a lock box, if they knew her home had previously been robbed? At the very least, maybe they should have taken her jewelry with them when they went to get a coffee. This is so sad - a hospital is the last place anything like this should ever happen.

The saddest health care crime I ever heard of was here in the Chicago area - a 20-something-year-old profoundly mentally retarded woman was a resident of a local nursing home specializing in care for developmentally disabled people, both children and adults. She was raped by a nurses' aide and became pregnant, and the facility did not identify her pregnancy until she was almost 7 months along. The woman's mother sued the nursing home, the physician and the nurses' aide. The facility was also fined by the state. It was all over the news because the woman was completely unable to do anything to resist the assault. The nurses' aide got a lengthy prison sentence. That was 3 or 4 years ago I think, but I remember it because the nursing home is one of the few that (ostensibly) provides care to people with developmental disabilities.