My 94 year old father had been living in the NC Veterans home in Black Mountain for almost a year following rehab from a fall. My sister who was his POA and who lived in Pennsylvania decided she was just going to leave him there to die. Meanwhile she started cleaning out his house without his permission. He noticed a lot of items were taken and he was quite unhappy about it. So he called me in Indiana and asked me to come see him, wherein he changed the POA to me. He decided he wanted to move out of the nursing home, so we took him to Indiana with us, and thats when she filed a petition against him alleging he was incompetent. A interim guardian was appointed for his finances (which was fine by me as there had not been any auditing or oversight of my fathers finances for 7 years.=). An Interim guardian was appointed for his person ( a for profit organization) and they proceeded to force him back to NC and back to the nursing home. He has been isolated at this nursing home that he calls “jail”. He is not allowed phone calls or visits from either my family or my sisters until the hearing is over. Basically he is being denied his civil and human rights. He states he is no longer a person- and they are telling him when he can breathe. He is not incompetent. yet they are treating him as such. The guardian of his person removed the new cell phone I purchased for him. I am fighting to get his rights restored and to have this agency stop treating him like a child. i would agree to supervised visits as well. If he needs help with some things, fine— but he should be allowed to live where he wants and to choose who he wants to spend time with. Removing all his rights is unethical and improper and if the NC courts support this abusive treatment of their elders while they are waiting on incompetency hearings then the state legislators need to put that in writing. If it is not a common practice to deny people their rights, then that also needs to be in writing and if a guardian agency oversteps their bounds they should be held accountable.

Hi Vicki I’m not exactly sure of the recourse given the situation we have experienced the exact same thing and some states are more keen on this than others what we did is got pro bono attorneys and then conducted mental evaluations of the relative and the caretaker to see if they were fit to be taken care of then you can proceed to get guardian/conservatorship by going in front of a court with magisraters it also depends on if that family member is the POA as well power of attorney which covers the general power of attorney and durable medical power of attorney it’s a much harder case if this person is the guardian and power of attorney and you can also call an ethics investigation according to your states statue and contact adult protective services some states have a separate department for elder affairs more priority is given to older adults or disabled and they can provide a welfare check along with you citing possible mental/psychological abuse by keeping them isolated this is a form of brainwashing and manipulation

What recourse is available when it is a family member that is isolating and refusing to allow other immediate family to visit?