Editorial: NEED FOR OVERSIGHT IN CONSERVATORSHIP SYSTEM

When my mother, Patricia C. Rosen, was put under conservatorship, I discovered the need for reform and public oversight.

For example, she was said to have dementia by professional conservators, attorneys and others profiting off her estate. The neuropsychological evaluator my mom hired by saving her scant allowance, as well as her doctor of 25 years, both found her competent but were ignored. Then the professional conservator resigned due to my “interference”, and my mom was placed in the hands of the Public Guardian, Harry Hagan, whose office found her to be competent.  The Public Guardian needed its funds for those truly in need, so terminated the conservatorship that had been going on for over five years.  Unlike the profit-making network, there was no incentive to keep her under conservatorship. Conservatorship is a huge cash cow. Is there a conflict of interest here?

Also, conservators are supposed to justify their fees to the court.

In my mother’s case, when the conservator resigned, there never was a final accounting submitted to the court. $83,000 of my mother’s money was used up with absolutely no court oversight. I had wanted to contest many of the fees, as I felt the conservator had done wrongdoing, but was deprived of my right to do so. The judge at the time didn’t try to stop this transgression of due process; in fact, he, along with the attorneys profiting off the estate, signed a court order allowing the conservator to be paid with no explanation to the court. Many other older persons are having their rights violated in this court system.  Oversight is important, the public needs to be watching.  One can help elders by being a watchdog and attending the probate court in Dept. 5 of the old courthouse building Thursdays at 9 am. Trouble is one can’t hear what’s going on at these “public” hearings. Other courtrooms have microphones. At a recent hearing a man in the audience informed Judge Stern that the public couldn’t hear, but was completely ignored. I don’t think the profit-making network wants us to know what’s going on.

To find out more about how elders are abused by conservators go to the National Association to Stop Guardian Abuse (NASGA) website at stopguardianabuse.org

~Bryan Rosen, Monticeto

Source:
Need for Oversight in Conservatorships

Judge Kennedy Replaces Davidson Public Guardian as Woman’s Conservator

The Davidson public guardian who courts records show charged $986 to accompany her ward to a Christmas concert at the Schermerhorn was replaced without opposition Wednesday by Probate Judge David Randy Kennedy after a brief hearing.

Kennedy approved a petition to have Myra S. Whitaker of Hendersonville take over as the conservator of her sister, Marlene Spalding. Whitaker replaces Davidson Public Guardian Jeanan Mills Stuart.

The move to replace Stuart followed a report in The Tennessean on the fees charged by Stuart, who was first voted into the post by Metro Council in 2008 and is now serving her second four-year term. Court records show Stuart has regularly charged her full hourly fee for legal services regardless of the service performed. Her current fee is $225 an hour. In Spalding’s case she charged $197.22 an hour to attend the 2011 Christmas performance of Handel’s Messiah. She charged $1,282 to accompany Spalding on a shopping trip in March of last year. In court Wednesday, Everette Parrish, the attorney for Whitaker, said that Spalding’s sister was now willing and able to become conservator. Whitaker was the original conservator but she was replaced by Stuart in 2010 when her husband became ill. He has since recovered and was present at the hearing.

In court papers Parrish noted that Whitaker would serve without charging any fees. Stuart told Kennedy she had no objection to Whitaker’s appointment. Kennedy has said he will not assign any additional cases to Stuart pending a review of the fees she has charged.

Full Article and Source:
Judge Replaces Davidson Public Guardian as Woman’s Conservator

See Also:
NASGA:  Ginger Franklin, Tennessee Victim

Lawless America: Diane Wilson

Source:
YouTube: Lawless America: Diane Wilson
See Also:
NASGA: Dorothy Wilson, New York Victim

Lawless America: Rosanna Miller

Source:
YouTube: Lawless America: Rosanna Miller

Still Troubled by Terri Schiavo’s Death but Inspired Too

Register correspondent Brian O’Neel recently sat down for an interview with  [Terri Schiavo’s]brother, Bobby Schindler Jr., who subsequently founded the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network to honor her memory. The organization helps medically dependent persons with disabilities and incapacitated individuals who face potentially facing life-threatening situations.

It’s now 20 years down the road since your father and Michael fought. What is your state of mind right now? Where are you, in terms of your perspective?
I struggle with this daily because it changes for me every day. From the time Terri collapsed to this moment, it has been a constant rollercoaster ride of emotions.

I guess the easy answer is: I’m committed to doing whatever I can so people will understand this issue. For the death merchants, so to speak, Terri’s death signaled the end. For me, it was the beginning. I’m not going to stop until everybody knows the truth about what they did to Terri, how she was barbarically and inhumanely killed, and how others are being killed just like her. That’s my mindset.

Euthanasia is such a widely misunderstood issue. So much of our society accepts this way of “caring,” which means directly killing people who are being sustained by basic and ordinary care, food and water.

Understand: Terri wasn’t on life support. She was receiving what the Church describes as basic and ordinary care, food and water. She had a feeding tube. She could’ve quite possibly lived a normal life span if she’d continued to receive food and water.

Furthermore, people don’t realize other individuals with brain injuries are being killed every day because the laws now consider feeding tubes artificial life support. It enables medical professionals and families to take it away from individuals if they choose.

The majority of calls we get are from families who are up against health-care professionals who are trying to take away food and water.

What’s the worst case that you’re familiar with, outside of your sister’s?
There are probably a few. There’s a case in New York. A county there has taken guardianship over a woman’s husband, Gary Harvey. The county is completely mistreating this woman, Sara, and what they’re doing to her husband is just unconscionable.

In Arizona, a man named  Jesse Ramirez, a war vet, got into a car accident. Doctors told his wife to remove the feeding tube. The parents went to court and got an injunction. A few months later, the guy walked out of the rehab center and was speaking with reporters.

Full Article and Source:
Still Troubled by Terri Schiavo’s Death, but Inspired Too

See Also:
Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network

Terri Schiavo’s Brother, Bobby Schindler, Petitions Court to Intervene in Guardianship Case

The Dictators of Non-Compassion:  Gary Harvey Case and the Unexpected Twist

Tonite on T.S. Radio: Nancy Vallone on Saving Daniellle Murphy

Danielle Murphy is a mildly autistic disabled adult. She lived with her aunt, Nancy Vallone, in Arizona. Nancy provided the best of care and medical treatment for Danielle and even moved to Ohio so Danielle could receive treatment from a the Cleveland Clinic Medical Center in Cleveland, OH. Shortly after the move, the Ohio’s Advocacy and Protective Services Agency (APSI) took control of Danielle’s case. They placed Danielle in a group home where she has been physically and sexually abused. APSI denies Danielle the treatment that Nancy moved to Ohio to receive.

Worst of all, APSI isolates Danielle from receiving any visitors, including her Aunt Nancy.

5:00 PST … 6:00 MST … 7:00 CST … 8:00 EST

LISTEN LIVE or listen to the archive after the show is over

See Also:
NASGA:  Danielle Rene Murphy, OH Victim

Lawless America: Mary Claire Connors

NOTE: The “NASGA.org” link mentioned in the video is incorrect. The correct link to “NASGA” is as shown above: http://www.StopGuardianAbuse.org.

Source:
Lawless America: Mary Claire Connors
See Also
NASGA: Grace Connors, Pennsylvania Victim

Congressional Testimony: Garr Alan Sanders to Bill Windsor of Lawless America

Source:
YouTube: Lawless America: Congressional Testimony: Garr Alan Sanders to Bill Windsor of Lawless America
See Also:
LawlessAmerica
NASGA: Robert Sanders, Missouri Victim

VA: Guardianship Case in McLean Illustrates Lack of Regulation for Those Caring for the Elderly

Samuel Drakulich earned a Bronze Star for drawing enemy fire away from a wounded soldier during World War II. He parachuted behind German lines to organize the resistance and went on to serve in the CIA.

But by his mid-80s, a stroke put the war hero in a wheelchair. Jeanne, his wife, had dementia. Their McLean home was in disarray and bills went unpaid.

A dispute between the couple’s children led the courts to decide that the Drakuliches needed a third-party caretaker. A judge appointed a law firm, which is common in Virginia when the elderly and incapacitated have no one else.

Now the Drakuliches and the law firm are fighting over tens of thousands of dollars in billings in a conflict that likely will be decided by the state Supreme Court.

It has raised questions among elder-care advocates and legislators about how a small number of paid guardians — both lawyers and non-lawyer professionals — are treating the aging and how states oversee the process.
In the McLean case, Needham, Mitnick and Pollack (NMP) took control of the Drakuliches’ lives and $700,000 nest egg, as it had done in six similar cases in Fairfax County. It charged wards up to $125 an hour — its normal professional rates — for personal services, such as renewing dog licenses, sorting boxes and preparing instructions on emptying a dryer’s lint trap, court records show.

NMP billed the Drakuliches $6,300 to prepare $1,800 worth of household items for auction, another ward $2,300 to sell a $4,000 car and a third person in their care $4,200 to recover $5,300 worth of investments, a court investigator found.

The Drakulich family calls the bills exorbitant; NMP says they are normal legal bills. The firm says it and other firms can’t afford to become guardians unless they are allowed to charge their regular rates.

Full Article and Source:
Guardianship Case in McLean Illustrates Lack of Regulation for Those Caring for the Elderly

Florida’s Treatment of Children, Elderly Wards is Inhumane

Letters To The Editor

Florida’s mistreatment of incapacitated children is identical to its heartless care of elderly wards warehoused in institutions, as detailed in a Nov. 12 Bradenton Herald article.

Poor Marie Freyre, just a child, was brutally taken by the state hundreds of miles from her loving family to be confined to a nursing home with a known reputation of problematic care. Hours later, sweet Marie, traumatized by the separation and abrupt isolation from her family, screaming to go home, died of a heart attack.

To anyone who has ever seen a child or an elder ripped from his family, the sight and the haunting sounds are indelible in your memory. I have seen both.

In Bradenton, my 89-year-old father was taken from my arms and put into lockdown — for three weeks, with a no-contact order on him. As a state ward, no court hearing was held to release him to his family, despite Florida law requiring prompt hearings or automatic release within 72 hours.

How simple it is to follow the money trail. For this lockdown of my father, a Holocaust survivor with post-traumatic stress disorder and 456 hours in isolation, the hospital charged well over $40,000 to Medicare.

Marie’s nursing home was paid $506 a day but her stay was ended by her death, one half day after her admission.

Can a child or an elder die from state-imposed emotional trauma of isolation from her loved ones? Marie knows that for sure.

~Beverly R. Newman, Ed.D.
Bradenton

Source:
Florida’s Treatment of Children, Elderly Wards is Inhumane

See Also:
NASGA: Al Katz, IN/FL Victim