I've heard about this in multiple locations. It's terrible tragic and so clearly homophobic it's sad. What's the most unbelievable about the whole story is selling of all their possessions. They clearly had no rights to do that?
I'm kinda confused by the whole legal issue. I mean, putting a man in a nursing home against his will? How does that work? And just selling all his stuff while he's there? I don't understand how it's even remotely possible for anyone to do that?
I don't know all the details. But I can probably explain a bit...
Lets say that there is a SINGLE elderly man, I call him Fred living on his own. FRED has no close relatives, that anyone knows about. Fred has a stroke but luckily a neighbor notices, call emergency and he gets taken to the hospital. His life is saved, but he is now too ill to make decisions for himself, pay his bills. This happens all to frequently.
The standard procedure is for the county to step in and assign a "power of attorney" or fiduciary to act on Fred's behalf. The people who do this can be honest people who want to help the elderly (a friend has been considering doing this and been taking classes), to people who rip these elderly off for money. The state officially "regulates" these people, but it's not uncommon to see report of people who ran off with their elderly charges money. This system seriously needs an overhaul, because once such a person has control, it's often hard even after an elderly person gets well for them to get control back of their money.
This person, now has FULL control over Fred's assets, including responsibility for their medical care and how to pay for it. This person is allowed to sell their assets to pay for medical care, since they now can make all financial decisions. Medical care in the U.S. is expensive.
In order to prevent this from happening, most elderly with any planning "name" someone to be their fiduciary. And the county is suppose to follow these documents. I am assuming from what I read that BOTH men got ill at about the same time, so that both of their rights were taken away at similar times. That they were individually given fiduciary's, instead of treated as one like a married couple. (Not sure if it was one or two people.)
Presumable, someone either did not look hard enough for their legal documents or choose to ignore them. Even if this had been two elderly men who had lived together for 20 years, who had not been gay. Their treatment was awful. There may have been a medical reason for putting them in two different nursing homes. Nursing home spots can be hard to get and vary with the level of care, and different price tags.
Don't excuse the situation, but I hope it help "explain" how it could happen.
*nod* it does explain it. It's.... practical, but like a lot of other stuff, it fails in regulation.
The way I had read the article made me think tht Clay wasn't really sick, they just removed him from his home and put into a nursing home, but that would have been pretty impossible without him having been at least a bit sick. (Someone in that nursing home had to check up on him etc, they weren't ALL in on it.)
I rechecked the article after posting this and realized. That it states that Clay wasn't sick, at least at first. It also states that the court didn't approve the "power of attorney" and whomever sold their assets didn't have proper permission. Very scary thought.
It's not that the regulation isn't there. It's that the resources aren't there to enforce the regulations.
Now, while I am appalled. I do take internet "reports" like this a bit suspect. There is no way for me to "prove" that all these facts are really true. I really want to see the local newspaper's take on this. Not that I believe all "facts" in newspapers either.
Your last point: absolutely. I mean. The point where Clay was placed in a nursing home while healthy and supposedly abe to take care of himself is very strange. It could be just appalling neglect by the nursing home, or it could be somehow wrongly reported. This is why journalists need to do their jobs, and not follow Pete to see when his hair gets cut.
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no subject
Date: 2010-04-19 05:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-19 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-19 09:44 pm (UTC)Lets say that there is a SINGLE elderly man, I call him Fred living on his own. FRED has no close relatives, that anyone knows about. Fred has a stroke but luckily a neighbor notices, call emergency and he gets taken to the hospital. His life is saved, but he is now too ill to make decisions for himself, pay his bills. This happens all to frequently.
The standard procedure is for the county to step in and assign a "power of attorney" or fiduciary to act on Fred's behalf. The people who do this can be honest people who want to help the elderly (a friend has been considering doing this and been taking classes), to people who rip these elderly off for money. The state officially "regulates" these people, but it's not uncommon to see report of people who ran off with their elderly charges money. This system seriously needs an overhaul, because once such a person has control, it's often hard even after an elderly person gets well for them to get control back of their money.
This person, now has FULL control over Fred's assets, including responsibility for their medical care and how to pay for it. This person is allowed to sell their assets to pay for medical care, since they now can make all financial decisions. Medical care in the U.S. is expensive.
In order to prevent this from happening, most elderly with any planning "name" someone to be their fiduciary. And the county is suppose to follow these documents. I am assuming from what I read that BOTH men got ill at about the same time, so that both of their rights were taken away at similar times. That they were individually given fiduciary's, instead of treated as one like a married couple. (Not sure if it was one or two people.)
Presumable, someone either did not look hard enough for their legal documents or choose to ignore them. Even if this had been two elderly men who had lived together for 20 years, who had not been gay. Their treatment was awful. There may have been a medical reason for putting them in two different nursing homes. Nursing home spots can be hard to get and vary with the level of care, and different price tags.
Don't excuse the situation, but I hope it help "explain" how it could happen.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-20 08:51 am (UTC)The way I had read the article made me think tht Clay wasn't really sick, they just removed him from his home and put into a nursing home, but that would have been pretty impossible without him having been at least a bit sick. (Someone in that nursing home had to check up on him etc, they weren't ALL in on it.)
no subject
Date: 2010-04-20 02:10 pm (UTC)It's not that the regulation isn't there. It's that the resources aren't there to enforce the regulations.
Now, while I am appalled. I do take internet "reports" like this a bit suspect. There is no way for me to "prove" that all these facts are really true. I really want to see the local newspaper's take on this. Not that I believe all "facts" in newspapers either.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-20 09:57 pm (UTC)