What is the name of your state? Florida
Thanks in advance for any advice given.
We have an aunt who is in her ealry 60s old and has a very large cancer growth. She had been difficult and caused problems over the years in my family and now that she's so sick out of compassion we would like to protect her assets and see that she gets the best care possible. But she fights us every step of the way. Her last two living immediate relatives are her brother and sister.
Our problem is that a person from a 'church' is trying to get her to sign over power of attorney for medical decisions. This woman has been representing herself to my aunt as a "nurse" and medical expert in these areas, and is charging my aunt $10 an hour to help her with medications, help her clean her apartment, and run errands. She is also pushing for my aunt to go to an attorney that she chooses to write up a will leaving everything to the church & maybe her. (This 'church' doesn't call itself a 'church' and seems a littlle culty). We have since found out this woman was a nurse's aid whose responsibilities would include cleaning sheets and bed pans - nothing medical - and that she is not licensed in the State of Florida. Also she is in charge of church property.
Second, my cousin is now trying to get a piece of the estate, he's been calling from out of state and complaining about his failing business. So know he want us to take my aunt to an attorney - given her state we think this is a bad idea. She changes her 'will' plans every couple of days, depending on who she is talking to.
As for my aunt's medical condition, she has begun to forget basic words and occassionally say odd things, one time she tried to drink out of a soap dispensor. She is a very sick woman who has hidden her condition from her family and had lied and said that the test results came back negative for cancer. I am concerned that she is still lucid enough to declare her own guardian, despite a doctor's comment that she could not make major decisions.
In the end we would like to make her as comfortable as possible with her money for the time she has less. The hospital is pushing for a very invasive sugery and will give us no percentage sucess rates because her case is so rare. She is also going to a cheaper hospital that has no special expertise in this area. This is of great concern to us but she defers to her friend who has expertise so often its impossible to get her to consider options. We think that a desire to maintain control and a distrust of everyone around her will keep her from sigining anything, however is something is signed we would like to contest it.
I see our grounds as mental incapcity (tough standard I think),
Some sort of guardianship (again tough at this point),
if she is hospitalized we'd like this person barred from seeing her, is that possible?
also if she passes we would like to go after this church because we are also very convinced that they had been encouraging her not to get the medical care she needs - even know the woman has suggested getting second opinions.
re. a will undue influence and potentially some criminal charges against this woman, who even know tells my mother that she is making a big deal out of things and that my aunt will be fine (this is ridiculous - if you saw the tumor, its also inhume to talk like this).
It is so exhausting to be trying to get my aunt to safeguard her assets for her own medical care and to get her to appoint medical decisions to her sister or brother or both. We simply want the money to be used for her care, she'll likely need more of it, and then if she lives we don't want some vultures to have eptied the estate or to worse leave her in a vegatative state.
Finally there may come a point where she is very ill and we would need to arrange for hospice care- I think her doctor can sign off on this - but unfortunately they offered to send over a nurse every day and this chruch friend took over and said it wasn't necessary.
Ok that's really long, and again thanks for any thoughts.
Thanks in advance for any advice given.
We have an aunt who is in her ealry 60s old and has a very large cancer growth. She had been difficult and caused problems over the years in my family and now that she's so sick out of compassion we would like to protect her assets and see that she gets the best care possible. But she fights us every step of the way. Her last two living immediate relatives are her brother and sister.
Our problem is that a person from a 'church' is trying to get her to sign over power of attorney for medical decisions. This woman has been representing herself to my aunt as a "nurse" and medical expert in these areas, and is charging my aunt $10 an hour to help her with medications, help her clean her apartment, and run errands. She is also pushing for my aunt to go to an attorney that she chooses to write up a will leaving everything to the church & maybe her. (This 'church' doesn't call itself a 'church' and seems a littlle culty). We have since found out this woman was a nurse's aid whose responsibilities would include cleaning sheets and bed pans - nothing medical - and that she is not licensed in the State of Florida. Also she is in charge of church property.
Second, my cousin is now trying to get a piece of the estate, he's been calling from out of state and complaining about his failing business. So know he want us to take my aunt to an attorney - given her state we think this is a bad idea. She changes her 'will' plans every couple of days, depending on who she is talking to.
As for my aunt's medical condition, she has begun to forget basic words and occassionally say odd things, one time she tried to drink out of a soap dispensor. She is a very sick woman who has hidden her condition from her family and had lied and said that the test results came back negative for cancer. I am concerned that she is still lucid enough to declare her own guardian, despite a doctor's comment that she could not make major decisions.
In the end we would like to make her as comfortable as possible with her money for the time she has less. The hospital is pushing for a very invasive sugery and will give us no percentage sucess rates because her case is so rare. She is also going to a cheaper hospital that has no special expertise in this area. This is of great concern to us but she defers to her friend who has expertise so often its impossible to get her to consider options. We think that a desire to maintain control and a distrust of everyone around her will keep her from sigining anything, however is something is signed we would like to contest it.
I see our grounds as mental incapcity (tough standard I think),
Some sort of guardianship (again tough at this point),
if she is hospitalized we'd like this person barred from seeing her, is that possible?
also if she passes we would like to go after this church because we are also very convinced that they had been encouraging her not to get the medical care she needs - even know the woman has suggested getting second opinions.
re. a will undue influence and potentially some criminal charges against this woman, who even know tells my mother that she is making a big deal out of things and that my aunt will be fine (this is ridiculous - if you saw the tumor, its also inhume to talk like this).
It is so exhausting to be trying to get my aunt to safeguard her assets for her own medical care and to get her to appoint medical decisions to her sister or brother or both. We simply want the money to be used for her care, she'll likely need more of it, and then if she lives we don't want some vultures to have eptied the estate or to worse leave her in a vegatative state.
Finally there may come a point where she is very ill and we would need to arrange for hospice care- I think her doctor can sign off on this - but unfortunately they offered to send over a nurse every day and this chruch friend took over and said it wasn't necessary.
Ok that's really long, and again thanks for any thoughts.
