Chicago-area hospitals recently initiated hundreds of guardianship petitions in just 18 months, a Tribune investigation has found, sometimes to the dismay of family members or friends who did not want people they loved to be placed under someone else’s control.
In many cases, guardianship eased the way for hospitals to discharge patients to subpar nursing homes, sometimes bypassing family members who disagreed with the hospital’s choice or were slow to make other arrangements.
Jim Berchtold, a Nevada attorney and the recent director of Justice in Aging’s guardianship policy program, said that when hospitals are the ones arranging for discharge, the focus is on getting the person out the door.
“They don’t care what level of care they’re receiving, they can say, ‘It was a safe discharge, we’re in the clear,’” said Berchtold, who developed a program to provide legal counsel for adults facing guardianship in his home state of Nevada. They may think: “‘Hopefully … the guardian will step in and transfer them someplace better.’ (They’re) pushing it off to the next person.”
