Greater Southside Health and Rehab: Abuse Violations - IA
The incident happened on October 10, 2025. The resident, identified in inspection records only as Resident 3, had been asking for pain medication. His medication had not arrived from the pharmacy. Nobody could tell him when it would come.
What happened next is documented across four separate staff interviews conducted by inspectors between October 20 and October 27.
A certified medication aide, identified as Staff C, called for backup that afternoon because she was afraid of Resident 3. He was angry. He was in pain and not getting medication. Staff C reached LPN Staff A.
Staff A went to Resident 3's room. By Staff A's own account, voices were raised. Staff A told inspectors she had grown tired of Resident 3's repeated profanities. So she walked out.
That is the version Staff A offered. Resident 3's account is more specific about what was said on the way out the door.
Resident 3 told inspectors on October 20 that Staff A screamed back and forth with him, and that Staff F said "don't give this mother f***r anything" before leaving. Staff C, the medication aide who had called for help, reported there was "much cussing back and forth" and that she walked away as she had been instructed to do by Staff A.
The inspection report also includes Staff A's own words to Staff C, recorded in the findings: "do not give him shit."
The resident told inspectors he received pain medication only once, in the middle of the night, during his time at the facility. He described having "a lot of pain."
The medication problem had begun the day before. LPN Staff D told inspectors that on October 9, Resident 3 asked for pain medication and was told the medications had not arrived from the pharmacy. Staff D's shift ended the morning of October 10. When Staff D left, the orders from the hospital still had not come through.
That means Resident 3 was waiting, in documented pain, from at least October 9 through the confrontation on October 10, with no medication and no resolution in sight. And when he expressed his frustration, the nurse responsible for his care screamed at him and told another staff member to withhold whatever he needed.
CMS rated the level of harm as actual harm. Not potential. Not a paperwork problem. Actual harm to a real person.
The administrator told inspectors on October 27 that she would have expected staff to inform her directly, right away, about a verbal altercation and resident allegations of abuse. That conversation happened seventeen days after the incident occurred.
Nobody had told her.
That gap, between what happened on October 10 and what the administrator learned and when, sits at the center of what inspectors documented. The abuse finding under F0600 is not just about what Staff A said in that room. It is about a facility where a nurse could scream at a resident in pain, instruct staff to deny him care, and walk out, and the person running the building would not hear about it for over two weeks.
Greater Southside Health and Rehabilitation sits on SW 9th Street in Des Moines. The complaint inspection that produced these findings was completed October 27, 2025.
Resident 3 described asking for the administrator on October 10, the same day as the confrontation. He wanted someone in charge. What he got was Staff A telling him, according to his account to inspectors, "what do you want, I am all you got."
That phrase carries more weight than it might seem. A resident in pain, unable to get medication, asks for the person responsible for the building, and is told by a nurse that she is all he is going to get. Then she screams at him. Then she tells staff not to give him anything. Then she leaves.
The inspection report does not describe what happened to Resident 3 after that. It does not say when or whether his pain medication eventually arrived, or what his condition was when he left, or whether he is still at the facility. What it records is what he said to inspectors ten days later: he had a lot of pain, he got medication once in the middle of the night, and on the day he tried to get help, a nurse told him she was all he had and then walked out after telling staff to give him nothing.
Inspectors documented the violation as affecting a few residents, not just one. The narrative centers on Resident 3, but the "few" designation suggests the pattern inspectors identified extended beyond a single room on a single afternoon.
Staff A's explanation to inspectors, that she was tired of the resident's repeated profanities and so she left, does not address the instruction she gave Staff C. Walking away from a difficult interaction is one thing. Telling a medication aide not to give a resident what he needs is another. The inspection report treats them as part of the same event, and CMS agreed that what occurred constituted abuse.
The administrator's statement to inspectors, that she would have expected immediate notification, is the kind of answer that sounds like accountability but lands differently when you consider the timeline. She learned about it on October 27. The confrontation was October 10. Somewhere in those seventeen days, every staff member who witnessed or participated in the incident made a choice not to bring it to her.
Or they did, and the report does not reflect it. But the administrator's own words to inspectors suggest she did not know. "Would have expected staff to inform her directly right away" is not the language of someone who was informed and responded. It is the language of someone who is hearing about it for the first time and trying to explain what should have happened differently.
What Resident 3 said to inspectors was simple. He was in pain. He asked for medication. He asked for the person in charge. He got screamed at instead, and then he got nothing.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Greater Southside Health and Rehabilitation from 2025-10-27 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Additional Resources
Data source: Official federal inspection data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Editorial process: AI-synthesized regulatory data, reviewed for accuracy by our editorial team.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: June 23, 2026 · Our methodology
Greater Southside Health and Rehabilitation in Des Moines, IA was cited for abuse-related violations during a health inspection on October 27, 2025.
The incident happened on October 10, 2025.
Health inspections identify deficiencies that facilities must correct. Violations range from minor documentation issues to serious safety concerns. Review the full report below for specific details and facility response.