Elderly Woman Gets Expensive Misery Courtesy Montco Adult Services — The social services promoted by the caring crowd are appearing more and more to be a money making scam, and a cruel one.
Jenny Reimenschneider has a horror story about the Montgomery County (Pa) Older Adult Protective Services.
It started about 2-and-a-half ago. Her mom, Elsie, then 84, had been living with her 59-year-old brother, JG. For years they were inseparable and Elsie took him everywhere, then lost an eye after botched cataract surgery by Wills Eye Hospital.
The brother had been recognized as disabled by Social Security since a teen, though he had a business degree and made many of Elsie’s appointments.
They lived in a condo in Mont Clare.
When Elsie could no longer drive, Jenny and her sister Sophia helped as they could but it was not enough.
Friends pitched in to take Elsie to appointments and meals but it was still not enough.
The brother asked the visiting doctor if they could get help. She brought the matter up to the county who turned it over to Adult Protective Services.
An agent visited the home and declared it to be an unfit environment.
Jenny concedes it was not perfect but Elsie had a constant companion and was content.
No matter. Montco assigned Elsie a lawyer she didn’t want. The lawyer began charging her $300 per hour, while ignoring her directions and wishes.
A guardian was assigned.
“Guardians are thought to be good things,” Jenny said. “You know like guardian angels.”
This one though was cold and cruel. She was also indifferent to the wishes of the mother.
She appeared to be in cahoots with the lawyer and it was from her she took directions, Jenny said.
A hearing was held.
The mom was ordered from her home and into Genesis Healthcare’s Manor Care of King of Prussia.
Her children’s visits were supervised. Jenny says Elsie cried at each one asking why they were keeping her there.
The children were forbidden from saying why.
The county began the steps to take her $200,000 home.
Here, though, is where the plot was foiled.
JG’s disability kept him from being evicted.
Three more hearings ensued. Jenny, Sophia and her other brother Jerald acquired joint custody of Elsie.
Still the county won’t let Elsie leave a “care” facility.
Why?
Imagine us rubbing our fingers together while pretending we have green paper between them.
The Reimenschneiders’ battle to get Elsie home continues. So far it has cost them about $15,000 in legal fees — which Jenny says pales compared to others fighting Montco — and the $10,000 apiece Elsie was forced to pay the county-appointed lawyer and the county-appointed guardian.
The county also paid the lawyer $10G and the lawyer continues to bill the county.
If it looks like corruption, swims like corruption and quacks like corruption, what else can it be?
