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Man's Wife Moved To Nursing Home 1,000 Miles Away Without Permission

By Eddie Farah

This is an incredible story and sounds like it could end up in court for violating the rights of the elderly.

A St. Augustine, Florida man says that on Christmas eve, his 65-year-old wife was moved to an Illinois nursing care center in Elmwood, without his approval or knowledge.

Viola Jane White, 65, has been a patient at Kindred Hospital in Green Cove Springs, west of Jacksonville. She needs dialysis and a ventilator to live. Christmas eve, William White got a call from the hospital that his wife had been flown to Illinois.

What angers him is that the hospital staff decided that they didn't need her husband’s approval to go.

"They said she agreed to it. She can't even sign her name. She don't know what day it is," White said to First Coast News.

White got a letter last September stating that his wife’s Medicaid and Medicare benefits would be exhausted by mid-November. In order to stay at Kindred Hospital, White would have to come up with $1,000 a day.

White says he was told the only option for his wife was to move out-of-state so she could receive Medicaid and Medicare, but this explaination, on the face of it, does not seem to make sense and certainly does not justify moving someone without notice and/or permission.

"I said I don't agree to send my wife 1,000 miles away. I'm 72 years old!" White said, adding that he doesn't know when he'll get to see her again.

There are many questions that Mr. White needs to have answered by a professional. Obviously moving a loved one across the country without permission, is not in anyone's best interest.

The first question should be – whose best interest is it in? #

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Eddie Farah

Full post as published by Jacksonville Personal Injury Lawyer on December 25, 2008 (boomark / email).