Terminally ill patients in New Jersey can opt for physician-assisted suicide starting Thursday

Those with a terminal illness in New Jersey will legally be able to end their life voluntarily beginning Thursday.

The new law, "Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act," was signed by Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy in April. The law allows for terminally ill patients to choose to have a physician administer drugs that would result in a painless death.

New Jersey is among a handful of other states that have passed so-called "Right to Die" laws — California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana Oregon, Vermont and Washington. The laws are currently on hold in Montana and Washington, DC as they face legal battles.

Under the New Jersey law, only people over the age of 18 that had been diagnosed with an incurable condition that would end the person's life within six months would be eligible to elect for suicide. The person would need to ask their doctor about assisted suicide twice over a 15-day span, and a second doctor would need to confirm the initial diagnosis. Finally, the patient needs to provide a written declaration of their wish to die that needs to be witnessed by two people — one of whom that cannot stand to benefit financially from the patient's passing.

Advocates argue that sick patients should have the right to die peacefully when painful treatments that may not improve quality of life are the only option for survival,

But some experts argue the ethics behind the law make it incompatible with the medical profession. The American Medical Association says the physician-assisted suicide "is fundamentally incompatible with the physician's role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks."

According to NJ.com, nearly 4,000 people have chosen to end their life in right-to-die states since Oregon passed the first law of its kind in 2007.

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Terminally ill patients in New Jersey can opt for physician-assisted suicide starting Thursday

Britney Spears Conservatorship Making Moves To Control Her Life In Eight More States

by Kristine Lofgren

The people behind Britney Spears’ conservatorship, including her father Jamie Spears, are hoping to extend their control over the singer in eight more states and Washington, D.C. According to The Blast, the conservatorship filed documents with the courts on Wednesday saying they planned to increase their influence over the star in more areas of the country.

Spears is hoping to expand the singer’s conservatorship to Alabama, Arizona, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Virginia. Earlier this year, the request was made to extend it to Florida, Louisiana, and Hawaii. The conservatorship started in 2008 in California, according to Forbes, and gives Spears’ father control over things like whether she can drive a car, whether she can marry, and whether or not she can perform. In California, it doesn’t allow Spears’ father to force her to take medications or enter into mental health treatment.

The conservatorship allows Spears to remove “the right to care for one’s own person and affairs.” As The Blast notes, it’s significant that Spears didn’t file for conservatorship in Nevada, which indicates that neither he nor the rest of the team thinks that the singer will be returning to her Las Vegas “Dominion” residency.

According to the court documents, the conservatorship “intends to register the Orders appointing Mr. Spears as Conservator of the Person and Estate, as well as his Letters of Conservatorship, with states outside of California, in accordance with each of the states’ required procedures.”

Spears sought to ease or even end her conservatorship by appearing in probate court on May 10 of this year. The move came after the #FreeBritney movement — a social media movement started by fans that called for letting the singer out of her conservatorship — began gaining momentum.

While her father apparently believes that the singer needs to remain under care, Spears’ mother, Lynne, has liked social media posts calling for the guardianship over her life to be ended. She also allegedly appeared in court to help support her daughter’s appeal.

Spears has also been struggling with forming relationships in Los Angeles. As The Inquisitr previously reported, the singer posted on social media saying that she didn’t know who to trust at times.

“Living in LA is such a trip!!! It can be lonely at times,” she said. “You never know who to trust, and some people can be fake,” she wrote. “I have a very small circle of friends, and simply do what makes me happy!!! It breaks my heart to see the comments on my posts sometimes…So I simply choose not to look anymore…let the clever haters do what they do best…hate!!!”

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Britney Spears Conservatorship Making Moves To Control Her Life In Eight More States

State Attempts To Shut Down Care Facilities After Seniors’ Deaths

ROSEVILLE (CBS13) — California regulators are cracking down on two assisted living homes after seniors were left alone in the sun and later died. 

The two incidents took place just months apart last year at facilities in Roseville and in Chico. Now, the state is taking legal action to get their licenses revoked. 

The state says staff at Meadow Oaks assisted living facility of Roseville on Oak Ridge Drive, failed to provide proper care and supervision that ultimately led to Gene Roger’s death. The staff worker mentioned in their complaint has a number of warrants out for her arrest, raising questions about the facility’s hiring practices. 

Eighty-three-year-old Gene Rogers was a Marine who fought in Korea. He later went on to coach youth football and raised three boys during his 60 years of marriage. On June 30, 2018, he became gravely ill.

“The hospital called and said he was almost dead when he arrived,” said his son Jeff. 

Jeff said his father was rushed to the hospital while in the care of nurses and staff at Meadow Oaks.

“He was unconscious, they had to bag him with a cooling bag, his skin temperature was 103 something,” he said. 

Gene was in a wheelchair and had dementia. The staff at the time told his family that he had wandered outside in the blazing sun, and staff later found him unresponsive. An explanation Jeffs family did not accept. 

“They cooked him to death, they put him out there, a person in his 80’s who’s not supposed to have severe heat exposure,” said Jeff. 

According to a complaint filed by the CA Department of Social Services, Rogers was left, “unattended for a prolonged period of time outside in the sun and heat. This resulted in the client suffering dehydration and heatstroke and ultimately led to the client’s death…“ 

Carole Herman is the President of the Foundation Aiding the Elderly (FATE), a non-profit that protects the rights of the elderly.

“To leave that man on the patio is inexcusable and they should lose their license over this,” said Herman.

Herman said her biggest concern is lack of enforcement at these facilities. 

“To shut down a facility is not common, and it rarely happens, and so that just tells you how egregious this was,” said Herman. 

Gene’s death came just two months after another patient died in Chico at a care home owned by the same group based in San Diego: Westmont Living. 

Now California regulators are taking action to revoke the licenses of both facilities.

“I want justice for my father, and I want to prevent this from happening to anyone else,” said Jeff. 

Since the incidents, Meadow Oaks is now under new management.

A spokesperson for the new group released the following statement: “First, I would like to extend my deepest condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Rogers. Integral Senior Living took over management of Meadow Oaks of Roseville on July 1, 2019. Because we were not involved with the community at the time of this unfortunate incident, we feel it would be inappropriate to comment on the circumstance,” said Carrie DelaneyDivisional Vice President of Sales & Marketing. 

CBS13 reached out to Westmont Living, based in La Jolla, but have not gotten a response. Lawyers for the company filed an answer with the state denying the allegations. They have requested a hearing. That date has not yet been set. 

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State Attempts To Shut Down Care Facilities After Seniors’ Deaths

Uptick in 'guardianship cases' leave Maryland patients in EDs for months

An increasing number of patients without guardians are staying in Maryland emergency departments for months, even though they don't require emergency care, according to The Capital Gazette.

The patients often lack a legal guardian and cannot care for themselves. Many have advanced dementia or a psychiatric illness. If case managers cannot find relatives to assign as guardians, the hospital must go through the county circuit court to appoint two people: one to make care decisions and the other to make financial decisions.

In the meantime, hospitals such as Glen Burnie-based Baltimore Washington Medical Center are not allowed to discharge the patients to long-term care facilities. Patients who lack guardians spend an average of 90 days at BWMC. "This is taking up beds for acute needs," said Beth Tingo, RN, BWMC's director of population health.

BWMC had 14 guardianship cases in 2017, 16 in 2018 and 19 in 2019 so far. The patients have waited a combined 3,000 days for discharge since 2017. The hospital does not know why there has been an increase in guardianship cases, Ms. Tingo said.

Annapolis, Md.-based Anne Arundel Medical Center's ED has also seen an uptick in such cases, with 18 over the past two years, according to Barbara Jacobs, RN, the hospital's chief nursing officer. The issue may be due to the increase in families moving away and leaving behind aging relatives, Ms. Jacobs said.

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Uptick in 'guardianship cases' leave Maryland patients in EDs for months

LTCCC Alert: The Most Poorly Rated Nursing Homes in the United States

August 21, 2019 – Approximately half of all seniors will need nursing home care at some point.  Despite this significant need, and the vulnerability of most nursing home residents, serious problems are widespread and persistent, including inadequate staffing, substandard care, abuse, and neglect.

To help the public gain insights into the quality and safety of facilities in their communities, LTCCC regularly publishes data on key indicators relevant to nursing home care. Today, we are publishing the latest data on nursing homes that have received a one-star overall rating on Nursing Home Compare. One-star is the lowest possible rating in the federal Five-Star rating system, which bases its overall rating on staffing levels, health inspection outcomes, and a range of quality measures. While studies have shown that having a high rating does not necessarily mean that a nursing home is safe, substandard care in lower rated facilities has become a matter of increasing public concern.

All files are searchable by facility name; location; ratings for health inspections, quality measures, and staffing; ownership type (for-profit vs not-for-profit); reported staffing; substantiated complaints against the facility; and number and amount of fines. The data were downloaded from Nursing Home Compare in August 2019.

In addition to the one-star facilities, LTCCC recently reported the Special Focus Facility candidate list, the latest information on staffing levels for every nursing home (in compliance with federal reporting requirements), and the top ten & bottom ten nursing homes in each state in respect to staffing levels.

To assist residents, families, and those who work with them achieve better care, LTCCC provides a range of fact sheets on residents’ rights as well as easy-to-use forms to support resident-centered advocacy on our website, www.nursinghome411.org.  All resources are free to use and share.

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LTCCC Alert: The Most Poorly Rated Nursing Homes in the United States

Tonight on Marti Oakley's TS Radio Network: LIVE WITH INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST GRETCHEN RACHEL HAMMOND:

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

Award-winning investigative journalist Gretchen Rachel Hammond spent the past 13 months independently investigating a systemic problem at the Oakland County Probate Court, which has allegedly been shielded by the highest levels of Michigan government for the past 30-some years.

The guardianship system isn’t new; in fact, it’s rooted in medieval English law. Every US state still uses some form of the system, which, at its best, is designed to protect citizens who are no longer able to protect themselves by declaring them wards of the state. We know, of course, that the system is rarely at its best, with increasing reports of abuse cropping up nationwide, prompting Congressional calls for reform.

But the level of controversy over how guardianship cases are handled in one Detroit-area probate courtroom has reached such heights, the story reads more like Orwellian fiction than it does a model of the American experience.

An unsettling number of accusations have been leveraged against the court, citing abuse, neglect, robbery, and exploitation, often in cases that arguably didn’t merit guardianship in the first place. In as little as a year, “incapacitated wards” are stripped of the entirety of their savings and possessions and rendered completely reliant upon social services and benefits such as Medicaid. Even high-profile families, including the estates of Rosa Parks and Aretha Franklin, have been drawn into the quagmire.

LISTEN to the show LIVE or listen to the archive later

Nessel relieves 4 lawyers of duties to administer certain estates

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel on Friday relieved four public administrators of their responsibilities in Oakland and Macomb counties, including two who have been linked to guardianship problems in those counties. 

The decision to relieve four of the 104 public administrators of their state-delegated duty to administer deceased estates where there is no family was made after Nessel’s months-long elder abuse listening tour.

In this June 4, 2019, photo, Dana Nessel, Attorney General of Michigan, listens to a question from reporters in Detroit. (Photo: Paul Sancya, AP)

The four lawyers relieved of their responsibilities were Robert Kirk in Macomb County Probate Court and John Yun, Thomas Fraser and Jennifer Carney in Oakland County Probate Court.

“Now that we’ve concluded our elder abuse listening tour, our office is taking a fresh look at how we provide critical services and resources to Michigan residents based on the feedback we received,” Nessel said in a statement Friday. “After reevaluating our needs, we decided to relieve these public administrators of their appointments.”

Kirk and Fraser had been highlighted in a WXYZ investigation revealing problems at the guardianship company Caring Hearts Michigan, owned by Kirk’s wife, and a guardianship case for which Fraser billed more than $17,000 in attorney fees.

When asked about the reasoning for relieving those specific lawyers, Nessel’s office gave few details.

“This was an internal decision made, in part, based on the feedback our office received from the communities we visited during our elder abuse listening tour,” said Nessel’s spokesman Dan Olsen.

The Attorney General’s office is tasked with appointing public administrators to help manage deceased estates as needed in Michigan’s 83 counties when no family is available or no estate is opened.

When contacted Friday, Kirk said he was informed of his removal by phone, but said he usually only handled one or two cases a year. He served as public administrator in Macomb County for 30 years.

In a Friday statement, Carney said she was honored to serve Oakland County residents for the four years she served in the position.

“I am saddened by the attorney general’s decision to terminate my appointment as a county public administrator, but my work as an advocate for the protection of vulnerable adults will continue,” Carney said.

Yun and Fraser did not immediately return calls for comment.

Nessel launched the Elder Abuse Task Force in March to address the legal, social and judicial shortfalls that have contributed to the abuse of the state’s 73,000 older adults. The task force has resulted in several elder abuse charges across the state since then.

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Nessel relieves 4 lawyers of duties to administer certain estates

Unprotected: Botox, breast, butt implants allegedly bought with cash from elderly victims

By: Ron Regan

CLEVELAND — A portion of the hundreds of thousands of dollars allegedly exploited from an 89-year-old Parma Heights man was used to purchase botox injections, breast implants and butt implants by the woman he trusted.

Details of the alleged scheme were revealed during testimony in a Cuyahoga County courtroom where 38-year-old Latasha Wisniewski is on trial on charges she orchestrated an elaborate plan to befriend the recently widowed victim and ultimately fleece him of his life savings.

Wisniewski has pleaded not guilty to the charges and insists the couple had a romantic relationship that included her moving in with the victim and taking care of him in the months before he died of cancer.

Parma Heights police investigated when the man's family complained.

The testimony came from Wisniewski's aunt, 39-year-old Lisa Dotson, who pleaded guilty earlier Monday in the same courtroom to similar charges in a separate case involving multiple elderly victims.


Dotson faces two to four years in prison and restitution totaling $200,000.

But Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Brent Kirvel says both Dotson and Wisniewski collaborated at one point to siphon off hundreds of thousands of dollars from the 89-year-old victim. That money was allegedly used to purchase plastic surgery, an SUV, gift cards and more.

In testimony Monday, Dotson also explained how she would earn a 50% "kickback" from checks she helped cash on the victim's account.

The case follows an exclusive 5 On Your Side investigation--"Unprotected"--detailing the growing crime of elderly financial exploitation and the lack of resources to investigate and prosecute.

Last year, as many as 3,000 elderly people across Ohio filed complaints that left the vast majority unprotected from financial exploitation.

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Unprotected: Botox, breast, butt implants allegedly bought with cash from elderly victims

Welch pleads guilty of embezzling $300k from probate court

A Grand Jury style closed hearing was held last Monday August 12th, at the Chambers County Court House where former Probate Clerk Rene Welch, 57, plead guilty to using her official position in the Chambers County Probate Judge’s Office for personal gains. 

Welch was sentenced to 18 months in prison and supervised probation for five years after she pled guilty to the theft of nearly $300,000 from the probate office.

Welch was charged with a class B felony.

Welch was a bookkeeper for the Chambers County Probate Office between the years of 2013 and 2017. She was responsible for verifying the amount of money collected each day and correcting any discrepancies.  Her position’s responsibility was to combine all collected money thru out a workday and prepare a deposit slip and take the money to the bank.

Investigators from the Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts noted numerous instances where the amount of cash recorded on the deposit slip by the bookkeeper and the cash deposited into the bank was less than the amount of cash collected by the clerks and verified by the
bookkeeper.

The plea agreement states that Welch has agreed to pay restitution for the full amount of the stolen funds. Current Probate Judge Paul Story said, “ It will be very hard to recoup the taxpayers money thru restitution.”

“This situation has not been detrimental to the county funds, it has been detrimental to the funds for the probate office itself and affected how it runs,” said Judge Story.

The news of this story was originally released a few days before the general election at which Story beat the seated Probate Judge Brandi Easlick. Story stated, “ We now have further checks and balances within our office, we have increased accountability for not only employees but myself also.”

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Welch pleads guilty of embezzling $300k from probate court