Belmont Healthcare Center: Sexual Abuse Finding Disputed - WV
That was February 4, 2026. What followed was an investigation that ended with the facility concluding it could not substantiate sexual abuse.
Resident 56 told the social worker and the administrator the same thing she told the aide: Resident 32 had rubbed her private area, and she believed the contact was intentional. She told her attending physician the same thing. Three separate times, to three separate people with authority to act, she described what had happened to her body and said she believed it was done on purpose.
A psychologist also interviewed her. During that session, she said she had no recollection of the event.
The facility's five-day follow-up report cited that inconsistency as the reason it could not substantiate sexual abuse. One session in which she voiced no memory of the incident, weighed against her own attending physician, the facility's social worker, the administrator, and the nurse aide who witnessed it firsthand. The facility concluded the inconsistency resolved the matter.
It did not note that memory inconsistency is common among elderly residents, particularly under stress. It did not weigh the consistency of her earlier statements. It did not appear to consider what it means for a person to describe an unwanted sexual touch to her doctor and then, in a separate clinical interview, say she does not remember it.
What the inspection report does note is that Resident 56 had a Brief Interview for Mental Status score of 14 as of April 21, 2026, a score that indicates she was cognitively intact. A physician had separately determined she had capacity. She was not a resident whose account could be dismissed on the basis of cognitive impairment. She understood what had happened to her. She said so repeatedly, to multiple people, before she said she did not remember.
By the time federal inspectors arrived on April 29, 2026, the facility's position had calcified. The administrator confirmed to inspectors that Resident 32 did touch Resident 56 on February 4. The touching happened. The administrator acknowledged it. The facility's argument was not that the touch did not occur but that it was accidental, that Resident 32 had been rubbing Resident 56's leg under the blanket and the contact with her private area was incidental.
Resident 56 said it was intentional. Her physician heard her say it. The social worker heard her say it. The administrator heard her say it. The facility's response was to decide that Resident 32's presumed intent mattered more than the resident's stated experience of what was done to her.
The inspection report describes what the facility failed to do in terms that are careful but pointed. It failed to recognize Resident 56's expression of anxiety over Resident 32 placing his hand under her blanket. It failed to recognize that Resident 56 considers the facility her home, a place where she expected to remain safe, to have privacy, and to be treated with dignity. She trusted that staff would address her concerns about being touched in a way she did not want. The report says she remained vulnerable throughout the incident and throughout the investigative process.
That word, vulnerable, carries weight in an inspection report. It is not language inspectors use loosely.
The report also notes something that the facility's five-day follow-up did not appear to grapple with: as of the April 29 inspection, Resident 32 continued to have access to Resident 56 and to other residents. The investigation had been closed. The conclusion was accidental contact. No steps had been documented to ensure Resident 56 felt safe, or to limit Resident 32's access, or to address what the report describes as her ongoing vulnerability.
The facility did not dispute the underlying facts. The administrator told inspectors directly that the touching occurred. The dispute was entirely about what the touching meant, and the facility resolved that dispute in favor of the resident who did the touching, not the resident who reported it.
This is the structure of the failure as the inspection report describes it. A nurse aide saw something and reported it. A resident with documented cognitive capacity described being sexually touched to her doctor, her social worker, and her facility's administrator, each time saying she believed it was intentional. The facility opened an investigation, found one statement in which she said she did not remember the event, and used that statement to close the investigation without a finding of abuse. It then left the two residents in proximity without documented safety measures.
What the inspection report does not contain is any indication that Resident 56 was asked, after the investigation closed, whether she felt safe. Whether she wanted to be moved. Whether she was afraid. The report notes explicitly that the facility failed to adequately evaluate whether she felt safe or take steps to alleviate her fear.
She had told the facility she was touched without her consent. She had said she believed it was done on purpose. She had told her own doctor. And the facility's final written position was that it was unable to substantiate the abuse.
The inspection was a complaint survey. Someone made a report that prompted inspectors to come. The report does not say who filed the complaint, but the inspection found what it found: a facility that had received a clear, consistent, multiply-corroborated account of sexual contact from a resident with full cognitive capacity and had concluded, based on a single inconsistent statement, that the abuse could not be substantiated.
Resident 56 lives at Belmont Healthcare Center. The inspection report describes the facility as her home. It uses that word deliberately, noting her expectation that she would be safe there, that she would have privacy, that she would be treated with dignity. She trusted the people responsible for her care to take seriously what she told them.
She told them. More than once. To more than one person.
The facility's written conclusion was that it could not be sure.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Belmont Healthcare Center from 2026-04-29 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Download the official CMS inspection PDF from Medicare.gov
Additional Resources
Data source: This article is based on inspection data downloaded directly from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) via Medicare.gov. CMS releases inspection reports in bulk; we publish the findings as documented by state surveyors in the official Form CMS-2567 Statement of Deficiencies.
Plan of correction: The CMS report we receive does not include the facility's plan of correction. Facilities submit plans of correction separately to state survey agencies and those responses may not be reflected in CMS data at the time of publication. The absence of a plan of correction in our data does not mean one was not filed. Readers who want information about corrective steps taken are encouraged to contact the facility directly or their state survey agency.
Corrections may have occurred: Inspection reports reflect conditions observed on the date of the survey. Facilities may have implemented corrections, staffing changes, additional training, or other remediation since the report was issued. We report what CMS provides and encourage readers to seek current information from the facility.
Editorial process: Inspection findings are extracted from CMS source documents and synthesized using AI, reviewed for factual accuracy against the original report by our editorial team.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: September 19, 2026 · Our methodology
BELMONT HEALTHCARE CENTER in BELMONT, WV was cited for abuse-related violations during a health inspection on April 29, 2026.
What followed was an investigation that ended with the facility concluding it could not substantiate sexual abuse.
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.