Saint Anthony Rehab: Financial Exploitation Risk - IN
The resident she stole from had dementia, paranoid schizophrenia, chronic pain, and anxiety. A physician had ordered hydrocodone-acetaminophen, 7.5 milligrams, every eight hours as needed for that pain. The medication was gone before anyone confirmed it had been taken.
The theft came to light on September 28, 2025, when LPN 6 returned to work and noticed something was off. She remembered clearly that Resident F had three narcotic medication cards and three corresponding count sheets when she had last left the facility on September 26. Now there were two of each. She reported the discrepancy up the chain. The Director of Nursing called the pharmacy to verify. The pharmacy confirmed it: one card and one count sheet were missing, and the resident should have had three of both.
The facility pulled its weekend video footage.
What administrators found on that recording was not ambiguous. LPN 7 approached the narcotic drawer of the medication cart. She removed narcotics. She then pulled the narcotic count sheet and placed both the medication and the sheet between two other pieces of paper, concealing them. She walked down the hallway to the employee exit, continued to her car in the parking lot, and drove away. She came back. When she returned, she was carrying two papers. No medication.
On January 28, 2026, the facility's administrator showed that video to a federal inspector on his computer.
The Director of Nursing confronted LPN 7 with what the video showed and suspended her pending investigation. LPN 7 denied any wrongdoing. The facility told her it was notifying authorities.
On October 1, 2025, staff reached LPN 7 by phone. They explained the reason for the call and asked her to either provide a statement over the phone or come to the facility to be interviewed in person. She said she would come in. She never showed up.
LPN 7 was terminated on October 2, 2025. The facility reported her and the incident to the state board of nursing licensure. Local police were called. She was arrested. When investigators searched her home, they found the missing narcotic medication card. As of the inspection date in late January 2026, the police investigation was still ongoing.
The inspection that produced this citation was a complaint survey conducted on January 28 and 29, 2026, more than three months after the theft. Federal inspectors classified the violation as past noncompliance, meaning the facility had already corrected the deficiency before the survey began. The correction date was listed as October 7, 2025. By then, the facility had audited all narcotic count sheets across the building, interviewed residents, terminated LPN 7, retrained all nursing staff on a new narcotic counting system, and brought in the pharmacy to conduct a house-wide audit of controlled substances.
The inspection report cited the violation under federal standards prohibiting misappropriation of resident property, defined in a facility policy dated September 2024 as the "deliberate misplacement, exploitation, or wrongful, temporary, or permanent use of a resident's belongings or money without the resident's consent."
Hydrocodone is a Schedule II controlled substance when prescribed alone and a Schedule III when combined with acetaminophen, as it was here. Either way, diversion of narcotic medications from nursing home residents is a known and persistent problem across long-term care. Residents with dementia are particularly vulnerable because they cannot reliably report that something is wrong. Resident F, who had both dementia and chronic pain requiring scheduled narcotic medication, had no way to know a dose had been taken.
The inspection record does not say whether Resident F experienced uncontrolled pain during the period when medication was missing, or whether anyone assessed that possibility. It does not say how long the medication had been gone before LPN 6 noticed the discrepancy on September 28. LPN 6 had last worked on September 26. The theft happened over the weekend. That is a window of at least two days.
What the record does say is that LPN 7 was seen on video removing the drugs, hiding them in paperwork, walking them to her car, and returning without them. It says the missing card was later found in her home. It says she denied wrongdoing, agreed to come in for an interview, and then did not come.
The facility's response, once the video evidence was in hand, moved quickly. Suspension on the day of confrontation. Termination within four days. Police notification. Board of nursing report. Retraining. Pharmacy audit. The corrective timeline was tight and the steps were substantive.
None of that changes what happened to the person in the bed at the end of the hallway, the one with dementia and schizophrenia and chronic pain, whose nurse took her medication home.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Saint Anthony Rehab and Nursing Center from 2026-01-29 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
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: August 9, 2026 · Our methodology
SAINT ANTHONY REHAB AND NURSING CENTER in LAFAYETTE, IN was cited for violations during a health inspection on January 29, 2026.
The resident she stole from had dementia, paranoid schizophrenia, chronic pain, and anxiety.
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.