The founder and president of a nationally known watchdog group for nursing homes will be in Albert Lea again this week to host a town hall meeting in connection with the alleged abuse case at Good Samaritan Society of Albert Lea.

This will be the third town hall meeting in Albert Lea for Wes Bledsoe of A Perfect Cause, a citizens’ advocacy organization in Oklahoma committed to long-term care reform.

The meeting will be from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday at the Albert Lea Inn.

Bledsoe said the alleged incidents in Albert Lea are not isolated incidents of abuse in Minnesota or in the United States.

During the Thursday town hall meeting, he said, he hopes to talk about some of the flaws in the current nursing home systems throughout the country and in how allegations of abuse are handled.

Bledsoe previously hosted town hall meetings in Albert Lea in December, after two young women were charged in Freeborn County District Court with allegations of abuse, and in January, after they were arraigned in court.

The teenagers, Brianna Broitzman and Ashton Larson, both 19, each face at least 10 charges, including criminal abuse of a vulnerable adult and assault in the fifth degree. The charges stem from alleged instances of abuse at the Good Samaritan facility last year.

Four teenagers, who were juveniles at the time of the alleged incidents and now are adults, have been charged in juvenile court with mandatory failure to report suspected abuse.

In Albert Lea, the details of the allegations surfaced after the release of a Minnesota Department of Health report in August that concluded four teenagers were involved in verbal, sexual and emotional abuse of 15 residents at the nursing home in Albert Lea over a span of five months. The residents suffered from mental degradation conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Good Samaritan Society management, who reported the alleged abuse to the Minnesota Department of Health and fired the young women who were allegedly involved in the abuse, were not cited for the allegations.

The Minnesota Department of Health report stated because of the corrective actions made early on by the nursing home administration, the license for Good Sam in Albert Lea would not be revoked.

Bledsoe said he did not agree with this.

Jan Reshetar, daughter-in-law of alleged abuse victim Grace Reshetar, said she hopes people will come together to look at how things on the city, state and national levels need to change to prevent possible cases of abuse from occurring in the future.

Reshetar said members of a local elder abuse support group — Familes Against Nursing Home Abuse — are sending out invitations to city, county and state officials to attend the town hall meeting.