 i witnessed bullying against my dad this morning while i was visiting him the incident took place in the facility in edison on saturday 5 2 26 at 10 30 am we were seated in the bistro after 10 am my dad resident damian andrisano left the bistro to go up to the wellness center to receive his morning meds about 10 20 am he came off the elevator and made his was back to me in the bistro he passed behind the row of chairs that were facing the grand staircase with their backs to the main desk in the last chair closest to the entrance of the facility was father john as my father rolled past behind the last chair i heard him calmly say how are you doing today father john at that point father john turned around in his chair and angrily yelled to my dad you stay away from me my day turned his wheelchair slightly to the right to face the staircase and calmly replied to father john why are you speaking that way to me father john began to yell even louder in an accusatory tone calling him names and telling my dad you are only back from the hospital one day and you are already causing trouble my father replied i didnt do anything except say hello to you why are you treating me this way at this point because of all of father johns loud behavior residents are now all looking at them a young man who works in recreation his name is james came over and told my dad to just keep moving and to stop all of this back and forth my dad asked why wont you listen to me at which point the gentleman responded im not here to take sides just dont go near him at that point i spoke to james and told him that i was an eye witness to the entire incident and reported exactly what had happened he repeated to me that he does not want to take sides and i let him know that i wanted him to have an accurate account of what transpired between the two men katlove now walked into the area and i gave her the details of the events that had happened she reassured me that she would bring the incident up to the administrator i also spoke to carmen at the front desk who admitted that she heard father john yelling but that she was helping someone at the time and was not paying attention to what was being said my reason for writing is to let the administrator know that bullying is continuing to take place by a resident in your facility towards my father and to give an accurate eye witness account of what had taken place here this morning am also aware that this is not an isolated event against my father i also feel the need to strongly remind administration that no one should be subjected to this type of abuse and the fact that this is happening in your facility makes you responsible for preventing it you are responsible not only the safety of your residents but also for putting the appropriate policies and consequences in place for those who are guilty of this totally unacceptable behavior to make sure that it does not happen again as an administrator i would think you would want your facility to be a safe space for staff residents and visitors alike i am sorry to say that what i have experienced by visiting here witnessing events and hearing the accounts of the abuse and bullying my father has reported to me and to my sisters over the past months that you are falling short of your responsibilities in this matter to say the least the fact that when i made my father aware of the email i was sending to administration his response was thank you for doing that but based on previous experience nothing will be done about it speaks volumes about the kind of leadership and advocation brought about by the current administration in this facility my own father does not have any trust in administration advocating on his behalf because there has been no evidence of it happening for him on past occasions i expect to hear the details of the policies that will be put into place to not only address the past and current incidents of bullying that had taken place but also what you plan to do to ensure that these policies will consistently be enforced and reinforced to prevent behavior and incidents like this from happening to anyone in the future valerie pena 