Insurance won’t cover that — nurse allegedly performs exorcism on nursing home resident
Upper Township Nazareth Police in Pennsylvania responded to a welfare check involving a nurse and patient at Gracedale Nursing Home in Northampton County. Police said that the caller claimed that a nurse was acting strangely in a room, and the grand jury report claims that the nurse was stuffing clothing and towels down the patient’s throat, as well as hitting her back.
The nurse is Octavia Robinson, and court documents show that she’s being charged with abuse of a care-dependent person, simple assault, and harassment after an officer claimed to witness her standing over a patient at the nursing home with her fingers in the patient’s mouth. Robinson claimed that there were demons in the patient that needed to come out. This unfortunately isn’t the first or only case involving the alleged mistreatment of a patient by healthcare staff, as another case inspired a woman to become a nurse herself.
Robinson was placed in hospital care
Police claim that the patient at the nursing home had blood on her clothes and around them and seemed to be distressed, but is bedridden and nonverbal. The report says that Robinson resisted arrest and had to be interrupted by force by law enforcement. Prior to their arrival, the victim’s roommates allegedly tried to get the attention of other staff members at the nursing home and law enforcement without success.
Following her arrest, Robinson was allegedly taken to the hospital, where she was admitted for an involuntary emergency evaluation. An executive stated that Robinson no longer works at the nursing home, and the grand jury assigned to her case claims that the investigation led to additional concerns regarding Gracedale’s safety and security being found.
Deeper concerns are surfacing regarding Gracedale
While investigating the case involving Robinson, the investigators apparently found that Medicare issues several inspection deficiencies for Gracedale: three in 2023, two in 2024, and 14 in 2025. Such deficiencies allegedly included residents not getting the medication or care that they needed, which is quite similar to a different case where a nurse removed a patient’s prescribed oxygen in another state.
Other issues that the report claims to have found include spoiled food being in the fridges, patient assaults that staff allegedly could have prevented, staff members allegedly sleeping during their shifts, and a lack of full-time security for the facility.
Officials state that Gracedale Nursing Home is under new administration, which plans to address the failures of the facility and make changes to improve its shortcomings.
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