Despicable

Sometimes, I come across situations in the course of my job that I truly find despicable. I’m sure I will outline each of these situations as the blog progresses, but for now, I’m going to touch on something that I have seen pop up numerous times in the past month. I often assess patients who are very very sick. This may be due to physical illness, mental illness, and often times both. These patients often have few financial resources and their only source of income is Social Security. Many of them are so ill and have such severe cognitive impairment that they lack the capacity to live safely and independently.

When people lack capacity to live safely and independently, they need to live in a supervised setting. That can be with family or it can be in a group home, such as a nursing home. Family can remove patients from group homes if they sign a form promising to provide adequate care and if no red flags are immediately obvious to the staff which indicate otherwise.

I have had several cases recently in which family members have very sick family members live with them for the sole purpose of stealing their income. One patient’s family member, for example took her out of a group home to live with her. Social workers found out later that the family member never gave the patient her medicines or cared for her properly, and stole her monthly Social Security check to buy drugs! This is ”family” we are talking about. I have seen other people perform this scam not to support a drug habit, but merely to put a few extra dollars in their pocket. Any family member that does something like the above should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law since they are neglecting seriously ill patients who can die as a result.