Guardianship

I quit reading the regular news because it’s so sensationalized. My preference would be long, in-depth, balanced and carefully researched, informative articles. What I’ve ended up reading lately has about 4 of those 5 characteristics. Everything except for balanced. I’ve been reading long exposés. I’ve found a number of magazines that have at least one long article per issue.

I’ve read about Monsanto’s criminal cover-up of the results of studies showing adverse health effects of Roundup (glyphosate). I’ve read about people being brainwashed into admitting to committing murders they never had any connection to. I read about how we will soon be falling in love with robots who look and act like humans.

I recently read a very detailed article blaming the opioid epidemic on one particular family-owned company, and by the way, the statistics in this article about the extent of the opioid epidemic are stunning.  (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-that-built-an-empire-of-pain)

But the article that moved me to sit down and blog is this one:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/how-the-elderly-lose-their-rights

This is simply horrifying. People in the guardianship business can target total strangers (whom they think have money) and get cooperative doctors and judges to grant them guardianship, even when their families are actively caring for them. And this is done in secret, without the elders or their families knowing about it. Their rights are completely stolen; they are literally kidnapped.

It’s a one-sided article, granted. But even if it were only 20% true, this is really, really not ok. The part that horrified me is that this could happen to people like us. I know that sounds self-oriented, but that’s the reality. As astounding horrific as the opioid epidemic is – I’m not actually expecting it to directly impact my family. (Except that it’s going to bankrupt our country and destroy huge numbers of lives.) This guardianship thing though – it sounds like something that could happen to us.

In the lead example of the story, the elderly couple were healthy, and their house was clean, and they were showing up to appointments, and getting their groceries, and handling life fine, and their daughter was visiting them DAILY. And they were simply taken from their house one day, with no warning, and their house and all their possessions were seized and sold, and their daughter couldn’t do anything about it. It took her two days of searching to even find where her parents had been taken. No one knew it was coming. I can’t even wrap my brain around the fact that that this could happen.

In this particular situation, the “guardian” was indicted, but mainly because she grossly inaccurately stated the situation. The process of “guardians” who are in this business for a living and have a network of doctors and judges who go along with them, taking vulnerable elderly strangers as “wards” and liquifying their assets, is actually legal if done properly.

“…private guardians appear to gravitate toward patients who had considerable assets…April Parks (a private guardian), after receiving a tip from a social worker, began cold-calling rehabilitation centers, searching for a seventy-nine-year-old woman…who had seven hundred thousand dollars and no children. Parks finally found her, but her physician wouldn’t sign a certificate of incapacity, “The doctor is not playing ball,” Parks wrote to her lawyer. She quickly found a different doctor to sign the certificate…” And a judge signed off on it.

It’s apparently a big problem in areas that attract retirees, such as Las Vegas, Palm Beach, Sarasota, Naples, San Antonio, and our own Albuquerque. There’s more info here, http://aaapg.net/, including recent cases and news on a state-by-state basis. And glancing at the New Mexico articles, it doesn’t appear to be only cases with “considerable assets” unless you define “considerable” way lower than I would.

I need my parents, and Monica and John, and Emily and Steven to read this (I’m only leaving out Mark because I don’t think reads this blog). If that link doesn’t work for you, let me know and I’ll send you a photocopied version.

GO BACK AND CLICK ON THE LINK

Ok, I know you don’t have time right now. Put it on your calendar for when you do. Thanks 🙂

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/how-the-elderly-lose-their-rights