2 Investigators: Abusive Home Health Care Workers Allowed To Keep Working

January 12, 2012 12:00 AM " CHICAGO (CBS) — They were hired to be in-home caregivers. Now, they are accused of abusing those vulnerable people.

Surprisingly, they are able to continue working as home health workers, CBS 2’s Dave Savini reports.

Stephanie Hartley, a home health care worker and nurse, is charged with aggravated battery of a child, for allegedly abusing a child she was being paid to care for.

She is accused of battering 8-year-old Giovanny Negrete, who suffers from Spina Bifida and needs a tracheotomy tube to breathe. The boy says Hartley repeatedly hit him.

Negrete says she hit him because of a full diaper. After bruises appeared on his chest and thigh, he told his mother, Alyssa Negrete.

“It’s not fair,” she says. “He’s defenseless.”

Update, Jan. 26, 2012: Stephanie Hartley has been found not guilty of abusing Giovanny Negrete.

Hartley still has a valid state license as an LPN, or practical nurse, and can still work in homes. The state does not have the power to take immediate action against her or any LPN like regulators can do with other professions, such as doctors.

Regulators are trying to fix that problem.

“I have to deal with my son, who had somebody who hurt him, and now it feels like she’s getting away with it,” Alyssa Negrete says. "

Click here to read the whole article