River Haven Nursing Home: Sexual Abuse Ignored - KY
Not the administrator. Not the Director of Nursing. Not the Social Services Director. The only person who sat down and formally questioned staff about what happened to the resident identified in inspection records as R8 was an Adult Protective Services worker who came in from outside the facility.
Federal inspectors documented the failure during a complaint inspection on August 26, 2025. What they found was a facility that had absorbed a sexual abuse allegation, routed it informally, and then done almost nothing with it — while residents continued living there alongside the staff member R8 said had touched him.
The allegation surfaced around March 10, 2025. R8 told a CNA that a male staff member had touched him inappropriately. According to inspection records, R8 believed the staff member was gay, and told the CNA as much. The CNA said she never knew who the specific person was, because the facility employed around four gay male staff members. She reported it to the administrator at the time.
That administrator, who was no longer in the position by the time inspectors arrived, said he was familiar with R8 and familiar with the allegation. He acknowledged R8 had reported the incident to APS himself. He acknowledged he had been aware of the allegation. And then he said plainly that he had not performed an investigation.
He told inspectors the facility had kept what he called a "soft file" on the incident — an unofficial file, separate from formal documentation. He said he did not know where that file was, because he was no longer the administrator.
The current administrator was able to produce the soft file. Inspectors reviewed it. It contained no documented evidence of anything related to the alleged incident involving R8.
The file was empty.
CNA 6, one of the male caregivers who had been in R8's room around the time of the incident, told inspectors he remembered the day clearly. He had gone into the room to check on R8, found a suitcase on the bed with clothes pulled out of it, and moved the suitcase to make room for the resident to sit. He got R8 some ice water. He leaned down and asked if the resident needed anything else. Then he helped R8's girlfriend, who was also a resident at the facility, into the room.
He said R8 didn't say anything to him that day about any allegation. He found out about it from coworkers, roughly five days later.
The administrator and the Director of Nursing had come up with a response: no male caregivers would be allowed in R8's room going forward. That was the solution. CNA 6 said the administrator never questioned him about the incident at all. The only person who had formally interviewed him was the APS worker.
The Social Services Director told inspectors her recollection of the incident was different from what the inspection records otherwise described. She said what she remembered was R8 reporting that a male staff member had touched him on the shoulder. She said R8 had told them he did not want, in her words, "fags" in his room. She said she had not reported the incident to anyone because the administrator already knew about it and had told her. When a resident made an allegation of sexual abuse, she said, staff should tell the administrator and let him take it from there.
She had told the administrator. She stopped there.
The Director of Nursing, interviewed the morning of the final inspection day, described what the proper procedure should have been in precise terms. If an abuse allegation came to her, she said, she would begin investigating it and report to the Office of Inspector General within two hours, then continue the investigation from there. She said that even if a resident had a history of making false accusations, an allegation still needed to be investigated, reported, and followed up on within five days.
Those are the standards she described. They are not what happened with R8.
The current administrator, interviewed fifteen minutes after the DON, acknowledged she was now the person responsible for investigating abuse allegations. She had not been the administrator when the incident occurred. She told inspectors that investigations should be conducted according to facility policy.
What the record shows is that the policy was not followed. The former administrator knew about the allegation and did not investigate it. The Social Services Director knew about it and did not report it. A soft file was created and then emptied of any meaningful content. The resident's allegation was resolved, administratively, by banning male caregivers from his room.
R8 had already reported the incident to APS himself, apparently without waiting for the facility to act on his behalf. He told the CNA who first heard his allegation that he believed the staff member was gay, and she passed that information to the administrator. The administrator knew. The DON and administrator together devised the room restriction. And still, months passed without a formal investigation, without documented interviews, without the two-hour OIG report the DON described as standard practice.
The inspection was triggered by a complaint. It covered the period around the March 2025 incident. By the time inspectors arrived in late August, the former administrator was gone, the soft file was empty, and the staff members who had been present that day had only ever been questioned by someone from outside the building.
CNA 6 had moved a suitcase, brought ice water, and asked a resident if he needed anything. He learned five days later that the resident had reported being touched inappropriately. And then, for months, nobody from the facility asked him what he knew.
R8 had gone to APS himself.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for River Haven Nursing and Rehabilitation Center from 2025-08-26 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 22, 2026 · Our methodology
River Haven Nursing And Rehabilitation Center in Paducah, KY was cited for abuse-related violations during a health inspection on August 26, 2025.
Not the Social Services Director.
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.