Guardianship, the legal process of
taking away an adult’s rights to make life decisions, is intended to
protect vulnerable people from neglect and abuse.
In
Richmond, VCU Health System and other health care providers have used
the process to remove poor patients from hospital beds, sometimes
against the wishes of family members, with the help of a local law firm.
A
year-long Richmond Times-Dispatch investigation has found that what
happens to the patients after they’re discharged is left up to a system
that fails to provide the one justification for the power it wields –
protection.
Ora Lomax felt in her bones that her husband of 63 years would die that day.
Four
days before Christmas, something in William Lomax had changed. He was
praying and singing “This Little Light of Mine” and “Jesus Loves Me.”
He must have felt death, she thought.
She couldn’t stand to see it happen. But before she left him, he squeezed her hand and told her he loved her for the last time.
Just
three months earlier, he’d been living with her in their small home
near Virginia Union University. Ever since a car accident in 2016 left
William, 87, with a brain injury, Ora, also 87, needed help from 24-hour
home health aides to take care of him. She couldn’t change him or help
him out of bed because of her own physical limitations, but she was
there to make sure the aides did.
He’d
spent his final weeks in a nursing home where Ora said she frequently
found him unwashed, cold and begging for water. He’d become agitated and
inconsolable.
He was angry with her for leaving him in this place.
“You have forsaken me,” he told her.
He didn’t understand that she had no choice.
Full Article & Source:
SPECIAL REPORT | Unguarded: How Richmond’s guardianship process leaves vulnerable people unprotected
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