Memphis VA retaliates against Veteran who exposed neglect

• Life

by Michael Volpe - Aug 28, 2015

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Despite a CDN expose on poor care at the Memphis VA, the neglect of wounded warriors - quad and paraplegics continues

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http://www.memphis.va.gov/

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MEMPHIS, Aug. 28, 2015 – The patient who leaked shocking videos showing paralyzed veterans left unattended at the Memphis VA says the only change since the video is that the hospital is now retaliating against him.
Last week, CDN broke  the news that paraplegic and quadriplegic veterans at the Memphis VA are left alone while nurses attend staff meetings.
The story was first released on CDN, and then was picked up by the Fox News Channel, featured on Fox & Friends as well as on its website, sparking national outrage about lack of care at the VA.

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Search the plight of vets at the Memphis Veterans Administration hospital

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Instead of rectifying a bad situation, hospital staff appears to have taken punitive action against the source of the video. Staff placed the patient, whose identity CDN is protecting for safety concerns, on bed rest after they speculated he could be responsible for the video.
On bed rest, he is not allowed to move from his bed. “Before the videos, I was able to get up for an hour or so,” he told CDN. “I don’t understand why I can’t get up for an hour. It (moving around) helped with my mental health and with my overall outlook, I was able to go outside and get fresh air.”
The source noted, however, that there has been no change in terms of leaving patients unattended during staff meetings, which take place three times a day. “So far as I know it’s still the same thing. I’m in a room where I can actually see the front desk from my room.”

 

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Willie Logan, the Memphis VA’s press representative, told CDN in its last story that a nurse was always at the nurse’s station and patients only needed to push a button to reach a nurse.
The source disagrees. He noted, “It’s apparent from the video that there is not somebody at the nurse’s station at all times. The room where they have that meeting is not a patient’s room so I’m not sure if they can hear the call.”
On the foxnews.com article, several commenters pointed out that a quadriplegic, someone paralyzed from the neck down, isn’t able to push a button.
A follow-up email to Logan on this issue was left unreturned, but the patient said shortly after the email was sent, several nursing managers who had never been in the ward before were working in the ward. “I’ve seen people in here I’ve never seen before,” he said. “They’re flipping beds and cleaning under mattresses and everything.”
Following the exposure, Paralyzed Veterans of America released a statement condemning the deplorable conditions. “This video speaks to a need that our organization has stressed to VA leaders, Congress and the public for quite some time: VA needs more nurses in specialized care services like spinal cord injury centers.”
The patient said his current care is indicative of the quality of care at the Memphis VA for years. “The treatment was so bad that I made up my mind not to come back,” he said of his experience four years ago.
Because of the severity of the injury, he said he was forced to get treatment at the Memphis VA because he didn’t have proper insurance for treatment outside the VA system.

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Our veterans deserve better

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Sean Higgins, the whistleblower who brought these videos to the attention of CDN, said this case is a microcosm of a bigger problem at the Memphis VA. “The situation in the Memphis VA has been out of hand for quite some time. To care for those who shall have borne the battle is clearly not the agenda at the Memphis VA,” Higgins said in a text message to CDN. “We veterans see the neglect from management that is filtered down to the staff that actually cares for these veterans. We continue to see more of the same: deny, delay, and hope you die before they have to pay.”
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After this article was published, The Memphis Veterans Affairs provided the following response:
The Memphis Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center adheres to very strict privacy laws which prohibit sharing personal, protected information of our Veterans, therefore we are unable to speak to any matter that would compromise an individual’s right to privacy.  Care provided to our patients is based on individual health care needs.
The Memphis VA Medical Center’s Spinal Cord Injury Unit (SCI), utilizes Environmental Control Unit (ECU) technology which is installed on the bed of every SCI patient, and allows patients to call the unit nursing staff regardless of their physical capabilities. Patients, based upon their level of ability, can utilize voice activation, touch screen, sip n’ puff straws, switch controls, or even eye gaze to operate the ECU technology.  Activating the call button by one of the aforementioned methods triggers a sound alert throughout the spinal cord unit and a light over the patient’s doorway.  Nursing staff respond appropriately to calls for assistance. The Environmental Control Units allow patients to control their surroundings, and also to control various media such as eBooks, the Internet, Facebook, Skyping with their families, and playing computer games, among other features too numerous to mention.
To ensure continuity of care, the SCI charge nurse spends five to ten minutes every day at the beginning of each shift with incoming nursing staff to share the most recent information about patients on the SCI unit. All other staff are available on the ward caring for patients.  SCI patients require very personal, hands-on care and it is rare that nurses have frequent opportunity to sit or stand at the “nurses station” – they are mostly attending to patients in the patient’s room. At no time is our SCI unit vacant of staff.
The Memphis VA Medical Center was the first hospital in the area, public or private, to install this high-tech ECU equipment. The specially trained SCI staff at Memphis VA played a key role in developing these units based upon their professional observances and desire to give Veterans the most patient centered care possible

Read more at http://www.commdiginews.com/life/memphis-va-retaliates-against-veteran-who-exposed-neglect-47533/#3yAiDEA8TrIyw3D8.99

Marriage of newlyweds, ages 96 and 95, questioned

Marriage of newlyweds, ages 96 and 95, questioned (VA)

September 25, 2014

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — In some ways, Rebecca Wright doesn’t understand all the fuss over her 96-year-old mother’s recent marriage. After all, she says, “Anybody who wants to get married must have a little dementia.”
The courts, though, and some of Wright’s other relatives aren’t amused. And the future for newlyweds Edith Hill, 96, and Eddie Harrison, 95, is very much uncertain.
The two have been companions for more than a decade after a Hollywood-style meet-cute — they struck up a conversation while standing in line for lottery tickets, with one of the tickets turning into a $2,500 winner. They married earlier this year, with a 95-year-old church elder presiding over the ceremony, no less.
“I guess I wanted company,” Hill said in an interview, explaining why she married. “I wanted somebody I could help, and they could help me. … We were both single. My husband was gone. His wife was gone. We became the best of friends.”
Robin Wright, Hill’s granddaughter, said the relationship is more romantic than Hill’s explanation allows.
“You catch them kissing all the time,” she said. “They’re actually in love. Really in love. … I know he’s part of the reason she gets up every morning.”
Legally, though, the wedding has been problematic. Hill has been declared legally incapacitated for several years. A judge said at a hearing last month that he believes Wright — co-guardian over her mother along with Rebecca Wright’s sister who opposed the marriage — acted improperly by taking her mother to get married without the court’s permission.
Cary Cuccinelli, representing the sister who opposed the marriage, Patricia Barber, said at last month’s hearing that the wedding occurred without other family members’ knowledge, and that it complicated the matter of how to eventually distribute Hill’s estate, which includes property on the edge of Old Town Alexandria, worth about $475,000, according to real estate assessments.
“Legally, Mr. Harrison now has a right to a portion of Ms. Hill’s estate,” she told the judge, saying it also complicates decisions over who will care for Hill, and where she will live.
While the judge, James Clark, found the marriage to have been improper, he also worried that breaking up the couple could “create a circumstance in Ms. Hill’s life that she doesn’t deserve.”
Clark ended up removing Wright and Barber as Hill’s guardians, and appointing a lawyer, Jessica Niesen, instead. The judge instructed Niesen “to investigate the marriage and take all actions appropriate and reasonable to protect the best interests of Edith Hill.”
Niesen, in a phone interview, said she is still gathering facts and has an upcoming appointment to meet Hill and Harrison. While there are numerous issues to be sorted out, including questions about inheritance and where the couple will live, she would just as soon let the marriage continue.
“I see no reason to break this couple up, if there is no harm,” she said. One solution might be a postnuptial agreement preventing Harrison from inheriting Hill’s estate.
Niesen said that if she finds that the marriage is not in Hill’s best interest, she has the authority to pursue a divorce or possibly an annulment on Hill’s behalf.
Wright said she remained concerned authorities would try to break up the marriage. She also opposes a postnuptial agreement, saying the marriage should be respected just as any other.
The interracial aspect of their marriage is unique as well. She is black and he is white. In fact, the longtime Virginians would not have been allowed to marry if they had met in their 20s or 30s or 40s, given Virginia’s law banning interracial marriages at the time.
Wright says she has concluded after doing some research through Guinness Book of World Records that the two are likely the nation’s oldest interracial newlyweds.
Edith Hill, for her part, doesn’t give the interracial aspect of her marriage too much thought, despite the fact that for half of her life it would have been illegal.
Asked about the old laws barring interracial marriage, she said, “That’s done away with, isn’t it?”
For now, the two live together in Annandale, with Rebecca and Robin Wright helping care for them. Rebecca Wright said the two do a good job taking care of each other — his hearing is not great, and her vision is not great. They dance, listen to music and take walks, which has improved their health.
And Rebecca Wright said the companionship two people of the same age provide each other can’t be underestimated.
“They can talk about things that nobody else knows about,” she said.
Eddie Harrison said he and Hill never fight, and they both understood what getting married would mean.
“The first time I married I didn’t know what I was doing,” he said. “I was 18. She was 26. Two weeks later I wanted a divorce.”
Attribution:
Marriage of newlyweds, ages 96 and 95, questioned
Matthew Barakat/Associated Press
September 9, 2014
SFGate.com
http://m.sfgate.com/news/us/article/Marriage-of-newlyweds-ages-96-and-95-questioned-5743149.php

Attorney James Kincheloe Jr. gets six years for embezzling from elderly woman

Attorney James Kincheloe Jr. gets six years for embezzling from elderly woman (VA)

September 3, 2014

A Attorney James Kincheloe Jr. gets six years for embezzling from elderly woman attorney was sentenced to six years in prison Thursday for embezzling nearly $500,000 while he was entrusted to care for an elderly woman and her estate, according to the Virginia attorney general’s office.
James G. Kincheloe, Jr., 67, who lives in Fauquier County, was convicted of a single count of embezzlement in the case in Fairfax County Circuit court in July. Kincheloe entered an Alford plea, meaning he did not admit guilt but acknowledged that prosecutors had enough evidence for a conviction.
Fairfax County Judge Jane M. Roush ruled that Kincheloe will have to repay more than $483,000 to the estate of Pearl Buckley, a Fairfax City resident who died in 2009 at the age of 90. A separate civil suit by the family claimed almost $900,000 was taken from Buckley.
Kincheloe served as the executor of Buckley’s will and that of her deceased husband, Edward. He also had power of attorney over her. At the time of her death, Buckley was suffering from dementia and was legally blind.
Before she died, prosecutors said Kincheloe entered into an agreement with her to manage her personal affairs at a rate of more than $9,700 a month — three times Buckley’s income. They also said his now-wife, Heidi Pender Kincheloe, entered a separate agreement to serve as Buckley’s personal assistant for $35 an hour.
Prosecutors say Pender Kincheloe only worked a fraction of the hours she billed for and she has been charged with six counts of receiving stolen property in Prince William County. She denies the charges.
Attribution:
Attorney James Kincheloe Jr. gets six years for embezzling from elderly woman
Justin Jouvenal
August 14, 2014
The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/attorney-james-kincheloe-jr-gets-six-years-for-embezzling-from-elderly-woman/2014/08/14/2823bf16-23e4-11e4-958c-268a320a60ce_story.html

New Virginia Law Aims To Help Elderly Victims

Editor's note: Again, your ProbateShark asks, "What good are these well intended laws when an evil Probate Court of Cook County exists?" Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com

 

New Virginia Law Aims To Help Elderly Victims

Posted by Mark Favaloro
July 14, 2013 6:28 PM

1 comment

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Every year there are more than 1,000 cases of financial exploitation of adults in the State of Virginia. The sad reality is elderly individuals are at a great risk of being taken advantage of by caregivers, including both professionals and relatives. Thankfully, legislators in Virginia recently passed a new law that is designed to help reduce that number.
The new law, which was implemented as of July 1, 2013, creates a criminal penalty for those who aim to take financial advantage of seniors. The law specifically states that it is a crime to financially exploit any mentally incapacitated adults.
One tragic case highlights the dangers of financial exploitation and involved a woman, Jeannie Beidler, who says her uncle financially exploited her grandparents, both of whom were suffering from dementia. Beidler says her uncle was their live-in caretaker and not only financially abused them, but also subjected them to physical abuse and neglect. The uncle would let the elderly couple sit around in their own waste for days while he forced Beidler’s grandmother to write him blank checks.
Once the scheme was finally uncovered the uncle was arrested and charged with abuse and neglect, but there was no crime for the financial exploitation he had engaged in. Now that the new law has been passed future cases will allow prosecutors to go after those people who preyed on vulnerable seniors in their time of need.
Sadly, stories of seniors being scammed out of the money it took them a lifetime of hard work to earn are increasingly common. According to a study by MetLife, incidents of elder financial fraud increased by 12% from 2008 to 2010, amounting to a whopping $2.9 billion in stolen money.
There are a lot of reasons why seniors are such attractive targets for financial crime. Experts say that those over the age of 50 control over 70% of the country’s wealth, yet many may not realize the true value of the property they possess. As elders become more physically frail, they may not see or hear as well or think as clearly as they used to, leaving openings for unscrupulous people to take advantage of them. As a group, the elderly are also likely to suffer from disabilities that make them dependent on others for help. These “helpers” may have nearly limitless access to the assets of their victims, and often exert powerful influence over the senior.
Though financial exploitation is bad enough, the fact is financial crime often goes hand in hand with other kinds of senior abuse. In many cases, caregivers who try and steal money from an elderly person have also been found to have either physically abused or neglected them.
CA

Tags: abuse, dementia, elderly, Financial Abuse, financial exploitation, financial fraud, mentally incapacitated, neglect, Nursing Home Abuse, nursing homes, seniors, VA, VA elder abuse attorney, Virginia, virginia law

 

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