Son Says FL Health Care Abuses Were Factors in his Mother's Death

In what he called a “letter to the world,” a Florida son painfully described systemic flaws and abuses, inflicted on his elderly mother, in the state’s health care system that have compelled him to speak out as an advocate for her.

Neil Roe, a former business law student, said his 89-year old mother, Arlene English, was a victim of the system who was denied basic human rights which he can no longer be silent about.

English had several documents drawn up in 2002 — including a will, a power of attorney and a health care surrogate – which described her intentions of how she wanted to live and leave life. In fact, Roe said his mother’s last will and testament included language that went beyond the normal bounds so that English’s wishes could not be misinterpreted.

A Florida court placed English in a nursing home facility, which her son said was against her will, outside of Tampa. Roe said his mother lost her ability to speak two years ago and the court system used that factor to say that was legally brain dead. The court hired three consultants who were called in to confirm this.

“They called in three different hired consultants to the county to go in, shake her hand, take a look at her, and walk out of the room and say, ‘Yeah, we agree, she’s brain dead.’”

Through a mistake of the nursing home, Roe’s mother was taken back to the hospital for health care which allowed him to get a second opinion of her condition. English’s primary ailment was Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP), which stops the mind’s ability to control the muscles in the body, a condition similar to Lou Gehrig’s disease.

“They called in three different hired consultants to the county to go in, shake her hand, take a look at her, and walk out of the room and say, ‘Yeah, we agree, she’s brain dead.’”

A magistrate ordered that Roe was no longer in charge of English’s health care and appointed a guardian to oversee her medical affairs. The magistrate also ordered the guardian be paid for five months back pay for services that weren’t provided, at a rate of $1,500 per month, which came out of English’s financial assets.

“They robbed my mother’s social security, they took everything that was in her bank account, and even though Medicare has court-ordered that I”m to be paid a subsistency out of my mother’s social security, I have yet to get the first penny of that from this guardian. And that’s about $290 per month to take care of the things I have to take care of around her home.”

On April 18, 2011, Roe’s mother passed away from what the medical examiner attributed to natural causes. Roe, however, points to a toxicology report from an independent lab that showed English’s blood morphine level was .082 to 1, per litre of blood, which Roe said is twice the legal dosage and suggests his mother may have been given fatal levels.

English was only in the first stages of pneumonia, Roe said, and she was responding to antibiotic treatments.

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Without Due Process: Florida Health Care Abuses Were Factors in Elderly Woman’s Death, Son Says