From: Marjorie Partch <mapartch@yahoo.com> To: "maureen.klett@ct.gov" <maureen.klett@ct.gov>; Dan Lerman <dan.lerman@ct.gov>; "charles.hulin@ct.gov" <charles.hulin@ct.gov>; "Amy.lappos@mail.house.gov" <Amy.lappos@mail.house.

gov>; Bob Sen. Duff <Bob.Duff@cga.ct.gov>; "Grady_Keefe@blumenthal.senate.gov" <Grady_Keefe@blumenthal.senate.gov>; David Vita <david@uuwestport.org>; Atty. Raphael <raphlaw220@aol.com>; Linda Napolillo <nap41886@aol.com>; "marygracia@q.com" <marygracia@q.com>

Dear Supervising Nurse Investigator Maureen Klett, CT Dept. of Public Health, I appreciate the several Citations you have issued to Wilton Meadows Health Care Center, in Wilton, CT, on behalf of my mother, Dorothy S. Partch, who has been suffering at their hands for nearly two years, despite having given me legal authority over her affairs in 2005. I am writing to once again file yet another Complaint that my mother's skin is not properly moisturized, and that she has scaly, bloody, itchy, and painful blisters, sores and scabs the size of quarters all over her legs. Smaller bleeding sores have been coming and going on her face. If you wait another three-to-four months to investigate, as is usually the case, the worst may improve again ~ as was the case last fall ~ if she survives her loneliness for another flu season in the facility. If you went today, you would see very disturbing sores on her legs.

These sores do not occur when her skin is properly moisturized, which I did for her at home for seven years. This "extra attention" comes and goes intermittently at Wilton Meadows, as do her skin sores. They are particularly severe at this point in time ~ the worst I have ever seen ~ and she expresses that they are very painful. ~ Is this acceptable? Is there nothing to be done about the quality of my mother's care that doesn't require months of waiting and / or thousands of dollars that are unavailable given the fact that her assets have been seized by the very people now responsible for her care, but neglecting her? ~ If she were in this condition in my care, would she be permitted to remain in my care? Doesn't she have a Right to proper skin care? To be free of this pain and discomfort? ~ If I had dislocated her shoulder at home, as Wilton Meadows' staff did a year ago, would she remain in my care? If I had also ignored a carcinoma, would she remain in my care? ~ She is also over-medicated with a seizure medication, Keppra, which makes it extremely difficult for her to keep her eyes open, function or speak ~ much like duct tape over one's mouth. I do believe it is given to her on an empty stomach, which aggravates the problem.

Because of its well-known side-effects of depression and narcolepsy, at home this medication was counter-balanced with an anti-depressant and an anti-narcoleptic. However, early in 2010, due to its persistent severe side-effects in her case ~ she; her private neurologist; and I, her POA, Attorney-in-Fact and Health Care Representative ~ made the informed quality-of-life decision to discontinue the medication entirely. She does not receive an anti-depressant or an antinarcoleptic at Wilton Meadows, but rather Ritalin, which is not approved for this use, and can cause seizures. In January 2011, I began filing Complaints about Wilton Meadows' continued use of this medication, which my mother was not permitted to Refuse at Wilton Meadows, as is her Patient Right. She was also denied the treatment of her private neurologist, also her Patient Right, for 11 months. It was only permitted under pressure from your Dept. and the Dept. of Social Services in March 2011. She cried when I told her she could finally see him. Her private neurologist is not permitted to speak with me, so I am unable to confer with him about other possible alternatives or practitioners. He would confirm that I was calling him desperately in the Spring of 2010, reporting that I could not get Wilton Meadows to call him in. Last July I filed a Complaint that included the issue my mother's skin care, and one open sore in particular, behind her right ear. Again under

pressure from your Dept., the sore was finally biopsied three months later, and found to be a carcinoma. It was treated in October, and the scar tissue still doesn't look "right" to me ~ I believe because it is subjected to a lot of rough handling. I have witnessed this, for example, with their hairdresser, who had not been informed of the delicate area ~ and ignored my mother's repeated protest, "You're hurting me, ow, it's hurting." This rough treatment was a consistent source of my complaints to Wilton Meadows staff from the time of her admission in April 2010. My complaints were a matter of my mother's medical record long before their subsequently fabricated allegations against me, which have never met any evidentiary test of Due Process. If I have to point out sores and bruises to Wilton Meadows' staff, how is it that the care she receives there is superior to the care I would provide for her? Indeed, Wilton Meadows' response to such concerns of mine is to attempt to block my calls and visits entirely, along with those of concerned relatives and friends such as Ms. Marcia Kosstrin, Occupational Therapist. Your Dept. has never responded to Complaints that Ms. Kosstrin has filed with you. If not for the regular interventions of the Regional Ombudsman, I would not be permitted to visit my mother at all, and she would not be permitted to receive any phone calls. ~ Then who would be monitoring her care? Wilton Meadows? Her Court-Appointed Conservator? The State? Who would advocate for her Rights?

To all concerned: Is my mother simply "sentenced" to a life of misery because Wilton Meadows has succeeded in arranging for a real estate attorney they prefer over me ~ due to my Complaints ~ to be appointed as her legal guardian? I can provide documentation that he admits to paying himself and his own attorney more than $72,000 out of my mother's money ~ that would have paid for a lot of private care at home for my mother. My mother is isolated, depressed, and miserable with itchy, painful, scaly, bloody sores all over her body ~ often from head to toe. The Dept. of Public Health has explained to me that this is because she is old. Do you accept that explanation? ~ Is there NOTHING that can be done? The Conservator is suggesting that the State be appointed as my mother's new Conservator, now that she is destitute and he is done with her estate. She is entitled to the LEAST RESTRICTIVE care possible, but she is in the MOST RESTRICTIVE setting imaginable ~ as visitors to Wilton Meadows can attest. Here in America, I am told, this battle must waged in the Courts ~ and like Wilton Meadows' staff and the Dept. of Public Health ~ the Court system is at best overburdened, overworked and underpaid. We still

do not have a date for a suit we brought to Superior Court last May. So what of Dorothy in the meantime? How is it the Probate Court was able to accomplish its seizure of my mother's Rights and property in a matter of weeks behind closed doors, with no Due Process? And yet she must stand on all this ceremony to right that wrong? Please don't leave this battle for an altruistic attorney to fight all alone on a white horse. We have one. But what about you? The other magic wand, in your other hand, is your voice. Raise your voice against this Injustice. Members of the Congregation for Humanistic Judaism have done so ~ contacting both elected officials and the Press, as well as the Dept. of Public Health, attached. ~ Have you? If you are wondering what more you can do, please speak with Mr. David Vita, the Director of Social Justice at the Unitarian Church in Westport. He has denounced our family's abuse as "an Abomination" from our pulpit. But he can't fight this battle alone either. And neither can I. [When I was evicted from our home, I also lost my private practice in the area, and I am in dire need of

employment ~ and / or training to return to my old field of publishing (print and web)]. My mother devoted her life to work for Civil Rights. After being an activist for public school integration in Brooklyn, she taught the American Transcendendalists in an integrated public high school in Norwalk. So that the ideas and poetry of our founding fathers and mothers would be available to young people of every stripe. Now she has lost her own Constitutionally guaranteed Civil Rights. My mother has been placed in this painful position without any legitimate Due Process. On top of that, she is forced to PAY AND WAIT for a drawn-out process to reverse this terrible Injustice ~ when her own funds have been appropriated by her tormenters and adversaries ~ talk about a Conflict of Interests! How can it be so easy to take away an individual's rights, but so difficult to restore them? Well, as you are seeing, it is. I am sure you recall the 14th Amendment, outlining our Constitutional Rights, which clearly transcend the questionable local goings-on of our "selfregulated" and state-run Probate Courts:
Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which

shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Suppose I were not able to raise a single penny for our legal representation? Would her fate simply be sealed? Is that how Justice works in America? I am asking, WHAT ELSE can be done? "All that is needed for Evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing." Once again, Donations can be made to Dorothy's Legal Defense Fund: Marjorie Partch c/o The Unitarian Church in Westport 10 Lyons Plains Road Westport, CT 06880 Director of Social Justice, Mr. David Vita: 203.227.7205, ext. 14. Thank you for ongoing support and concern for our truly Dickensian-Kafkaesque nightmare, Marjorie Partch Dorothy Partch 212.420.9187 / 203.912.3528