^^^In my experience, complaints on this issue usually come from the patient's children, who think that the parents are too old, infirm, or incompetent to be having sexual relations, and they should just give it a rest. Most of the time, it is a daughter complaining about her father wanting to maintain a sexual relationship in the facility with his wife. Especially so if the daughter is not the biological daughter of the father, as it is in this case or if there were poor family dynamics.
So the facility has to weigh two competing interests: the children vs. the parents, and this is an issue where competency to make decisions is key. If the couple is still competent and makes their own decisions on this, you would generally tell the children to take a hike. If one or both of the couple is incompetent and/or the children hold healthcare power of attorney or decision-making, then you have to sit down and discuss which way to go.
One of the reasons that the facility staff get the vapors about this sort of thing is if they think that abuse or neglect is occurring, and non-consensual sex is within the definition of abuse or neglect, they are obligated by law under penalty of losing their healthcare license to report this to the local or State adult protective agency. I would also add that the adult protective agency hates these sort of cases and trying to sort things out can be very difficult. I have been in court hearings on this sort of thing where the judge, the caseworker, people from the facility, people from the family and I all sit and look at each other and say 'how the heck do we fix this problem?'.
And again, the fact that the couple is married to each other makes no difference in terms of consent, since non-consensual sex in the context of marriage is a crime in Washington and many other states. I would get calls about that all the time.
