This article is part one in a series. For the full series, go here.
Some readers may find aspects of this article distressing.
Across Australia, tens of thousands of people — most elderly, some living with disabilities — have aspects of their lives controlled by the state.
Public guardians are appointed when people are deemed unable to make decisions for themselves, and can decide where these people live, who can visit them and what medical care they receive. In some states, guardianship orders define what specific decisions a public guardian can make, while in other states orders are broader. These orders are time-limited and are periodically reviewed. Nearly 14,000 Australians are currently under a guardianship order.
Then there are public trustees. They decide where these people’s money should be invested and what personal items should be sold — and charge astronomical fees for doing so. State public trustees manage nearly $15 billion in assets and consistently make a profit for their services, representing more than 47,000 Australians.
Locked in senior: Daughter speaks out
- Details
- Category: Australian public guardian corruption
- Created: Friday, 14 February 2020 21:34
- Written by Erwin Chlanda - Alice Springs News
Lisa Wilson, the daughter of Alan Viegas, this morning sent to the Alice Springs News an image containing two photos of her father.
In a message including “My Dad, Alan” Ms Wilson says: “Please print the … photo, with accompanying brief. Thank you.”
- Abusers Organisation:: Old Timers Aged Care Facility
- Type of Abuse:: Financial, Physical, Neglect, Emotional, Psychological or Mental
Elderly amputee wins court battle after being prevented from living on yacht
- Editors notes: J refused to consider living elsewhere, so a hospital social worker filed an application to the guardian and administration board. The board concluded that J lacked capacity to make reasonable decisions about his accommodation.
- Abusers job or title:: Doctors, social workers and psychologists at Royal Hobart hospital.
- Details
- Category: Australian public guardian corruption
- Created: Tuesday, 23 April 2019 23:25
- Written by Lisa Martin - Guardian Australia
Man known as J was held in hospital under guardianship order for eight months
The case is likely to pique the interests of the aged care royal commission and the upcoming national inquiry into the disability sector.
- Abuser Name or Alias:: Dr Madeline Black and Psychologist John Murphy
- Abusers Organisation:: Royal Hobart hospital
- Type of Abuse:: Financial, Physical, Neglect, Emotional, Psychological or Mental
Marie Dupois murdered by staff at Gold Coast Hospital
- Details
- Category: Australian public guardian corruption
- Created: Thursday, 19 December 2019 10:41
- Written by Therese Zuanetti
SA nursing home blocks daughters' unsupervised visits with dying mother
- Details
- Category: Australian public guardian corruption
- Created: Friday, 17 January 2020 15:00
- Written by Sowaibah Hanifie - ABC North and SA
Two sisters say they've been left traumatised by a decision to limit their access to their dying mother after a dispute with her nursing home in regional South Australia.
The sisters, Catherine Loran and Sylvia Mullan, have been sole carers for their mother, 86-year-old Doreen Loran, for a decade and feel the issue arose after they complained about the home's "disgusting" level of care.
After a bitter dispute with her Port Augusta-based aged care provider, Edenfield Family Care Nerrilda, the sisters said they'd been limited to just two one-hour supervised visits per week.
Ms Loran has dementia and breast cancer and has been given months to live.
"It's like mum's a prisoner, not a resident," Ms Mullan said.
Six young Australians a day forced into nursing homes
- Details
- Category: Australian public guardian corruption
- Created: Monday, 09 September 2019 20:16
- Written by Lisa Martin - Guardian UK
Royal commission hears of plight of young Australians stuck in aged care
Every day six young Australians are institutionalised in the aged care system because there is nowhere else they can go to receive the care they need.
The aged care royal commission is sitting in Melbourne this week and is turning its attention to people aged under 65 in nursing homes.
Witnesses tell shocking tales about Guardian
- Details
- Category: Australian public guardian corruption
- Created: Friday, 25 August 2000 10:53
- Written by NSWGT-Exposed
Horror stories of medical maltreatment of people in the care of the NSW guardianship authorities, including the alleged euthanasia of an elderly woman against the wishes of her family, were recounted to a parliamentary committee yesterday. Witnesses wept as they gave evidence of officials of the Public Guardian’s office confiscating the assets of their relatives and putting them in hospitals and nursing homes where they were prevented from seeing their families and subjected to massive doses of psychotropic drugs.
More than 100 friends and families of people subject to guardianship orders packed the theatrette at Parliament House for an unusual public forum chaired by Swansea MP Mr. Milton Orkopoulos, applauding as witnesses denounced the decisions and policies of the guardianship bureaucracy.
The most dramatic testimony came from a Sydney woman, Frances Cookson, who said that her previously alert and active mother had been allowed to die of “thirst and starvation” after the Guardianship Tribunal intervened in a family dispute over her care, and hospitalized her, where she was incorrectly diagnosed as suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and given powerful drugs.
Brandishing pictures of her emaciated-looking mother, Ms. Cookson alleged that “a decision was made to terminate my mother by denying her food and water” by medical staff “in the Fairfield area” who had access to a book on euthanasia called Playing God. Her mother died in March 1995, only a matter of months after being placed under guardianship.
- Abuser Name or Alias:: NSW Public Guardian
- Abusers Organisation:: State Authority
- Type of Abuse:: Financial, Physical, Neglect, Chemical Restraint, Death
- Matter Resolved?: No
Paddy Costa
- Details
- Category: Australian public guardian corruption
- Created: Sunday, 21 July 2019 09:06
- Written by Paddy Costa & NSWGT-Exposed
NSWTG-EXPOSED NOTES: Paddy Costa battled the Australian ‘Office of Protective Commissioner’ (OPC) for many years. Her efforts to reform the government system, which handled incapacitated people, was continuously blocked. She created an organisation called COPPA, which stood for ‘Carers Of Protected Persons Association’, which no longer exists. Paddy passed away sometime during the early 2000’s. I have very little information about Paddy Costa. If you could assist me in gathering a more comprehensive insight, into the work that Paddy accomplished, I believe that I could make very good use of it, through nswtgexposed.com.au
Treated like naughty kids
MP’s will vote soon on whether the NSW Guardianship Board, under attack for “playing God”, should sanction medical experiments on people under its care.
Protect us from the guardian
Until last November Capsis never dreamt that the fight that would get him most fired up would be right in his backyard. That was when responsibility for his ailing, widowed, 82-year-old mother-in-law, Gladys Raffa, was taken away from Capsis and his wife, Gail, and she was placed in the hands of the NSW guardianship authorities.
- Abusers Organisation:: Australian Office of the Protective Commissioner
- Type of Abuse:: Financial
- Matter Resolved?: No
Geoff Thomas - Queensland Public Trustee Abuse: “Withholding my RediCard”
- Details
- Category: Australian public guardian corruption
- Created: Sunday, 08 May 2011 09:26
- Written by NSWGT-Exposed
May 8, 2011: Australian citizen, who fled to New Zealand, to escape the clutches of the Queensland Public Trustee, & Adult Guardian, who have been treating him with contempt, and violating his basic human rights for the last decade! He has two brain tumours, two kidney tumours and epilepsy…
Queensland Public Trustee Bullies – Confiscating CentreLink Pension
- Abuser Name or Alias:: Tanya Vellacott, Michelle Vichi and Tim Feeley - Senior Officers
- Abusers Organisation:: Queensland Public Trustee
- Type of Abuse:: Financial
- Matter Resolved?: No, Ongoing
Jon Blake
- Details
- Category: Australian public guardian corruption
- Created: Sunday, 21 July 2019 09:09
- Written by NSWGT-Exposed
NSWGT-EXPOSED COMMENT: There are oodles of info about the existence of an Aussie bloke named Jon Blake. Unfortunately, his life took a turn for the worst while he was still relatively young. To compound his challenge, some awful people took advantage of his circumstances (including the NSW Public Trustee), which had a devastating effect upon his entire family. If ever there was a memory, of a persons legacy worth fighting for, truly it is Jon Blake’s. To Jon and all his family, I hope that the delayed justice that you never got, is bestowed upon you tenfold.
The Fight Of His Life: Jon Blake’s Battle
Jon Blake was once the rising star of Australian film with a career ahead of him so promising that a court awarded him $32 million damages for the car accident that left him brain damaged and paralysed.
- Abusers Organisation:: NSW Public Trustee
- Type of Abuse:: Financial
- Matter Resolved?: No, Ongoing
Paula Carew
- Details
- Category: Australian public guardian corruption
- Created: Sunday, 21 July 2019 08:54
- Written by Paula Carew
END THE NSW TRUSTEE & GUARDIAN ABUSE OF PROTECTED PERSON’S ASSETS
- by: Paula Carew
- recipient: Minister for ageing and Disability M John Ajaka, Attorney General Minister for Justice, Brad Hazzard.
THE NSW TRUSTEE AND GUARDIAN ARE A LAW UNTO THEMSELVES WITH NO RECOURSE FOR PERSONS WHO ARE UNDER THEIR DICTATORSHIP. END THEIR TYRANNICAL SUPPRESSION OF PEOPLE’S LIBERTY AND MAKE SURE AN INDEPENDENT WATCHDOG IS SET UP TO MONITOR NSW TRUSTEE DECISION MAKING IS IN THE PROTECTED PERSONS BEST INTERESTS NOT THE NSW TRUSTEE’S BEST INTERESTS.
Demand that an independent committee made up of non public servants be given the power to review NSW Trustee and Guardian decisions. Demand that the NSW Trustee and Guardian be stripped of their dictatorship of total control of another’s assets.
More Articles ...
- Grant MacDonald
- Chris Jenkinson
- Mira Mikulic
- Paul Contempree
- Unwilling Ward of the State - Australia
- The committee to expost the public trustee
- Disabled man wins 16-year fight with Public Trustee
- Personal stories of contact with the Queensland adult guardianship system
- Former Public Trustee worker avoids jail
Country/IP Block
Country: United States
