Shelly's column: Where does buck stop on abuse of elderly?
By Barb Shelly
Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist
Submitted by barbshelly on June 12, 2008 - 3:20pm.
Glenda Grimes described her mother’s death to police as “a gateway to a better world.”
Certainly, the world that 72-year-old Glenda Stevens knew in her final days was wretched.
An autopsy showed she was suffering from an untreated broken leg. She was malnourished. She had rib fractures, bed sores, cuts and bruises. The cause of death was listed as multiple blunt force.
Court documents detail other acts of cruelty. Grimes was tied to a potty chair for hours at a time. She was deprived of her life’s possessions and left to wither without diversions or acts of kindness.
Prosecutors this month charged Grimes, of Lee’s Summit, with second-degree murder. Jackson County Prosecutor Jim Kanatzar called Stevens’ death the worst case of elder abuse he’d seen.
It should have been prevented.
Prosecutors this month charged Grimes, of Lee’s Summit, with second-degree murder. Jackson County Prosecutor Jim Kanatzar called Stevens’ death the worst case of elder abuse he’d seen.
It should have been prevented.
Interviews conducted by Lee’s Summit police following Stevens’ death show that family members knew she was being mistreated.
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services had received at least three hot line calls about Stevens’ well-being.
An investigator from the department checked on Stevens in June 2006 and observed bruises on her hand, burn marks on her arm and an unexplained mark on her face.
With Grimes sitting nearby, Stevens cowered and glanced her way before responding to investigator Dee Singleton’s questions.
“…I suspect physical abuse is occurring,” Singleton wrote in her report.
Yet Stevens remained with her daughter, and was increasingly isolated from other members of the family, according to a statement from the prosecutor’s office.
Gov. Matt Blunt’s spokeswoman said he was troubled by the case and added, “While calls to the Elder Abuse and Neglect Hotline and related investigations are confidential… the governor expects the department to appropriately investigate and take action on situations of suspected elder abuse.”
The message is clear: Responsibility for investigating the Department of Health and Senior Services’s handling of the Stevens case rests with the department. The public will never know what happened.
That’s wrong from any angle. The public can’t learn whether the department made mistakes, and the department can’t exonerate itself if it didn’t.
A change in state law is needed. Records on elderly abuse cases should be treated the same as case files on child abuse.
Abridged
SOURCE: VoicesKansasCity
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