Trinidad: Police, fire officers break into se­nior cit­i­zen’s home to remove woman

(Trinidad Guardian) Po­lice and fire­fight­ers had to break in­to a se­nior cit­i­zen’s home in South Trinidad yes­ter­day af­ter staff locked the gate and re­fused a woman ac­cess to her aunt.

Of­fi­cers had to lift the gate off the hinges to get 85-year-old Sheila Hall from the home for the aged.

 
Para­medics from the Mon Re­pos Fire Sta­tion took Hall, who suf­fers from Alzheimer’s to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for a med­ical eval­u­a­tion. An of­fi­cer said Hall seemed trau­ma­tised.

Hall’s niece Glen­isha Har­ri­son said Hall had been stay­ing at the home for the past six months.

Three months in­to her stay, her son Chris, 70, passed away, leav­ing Hall in rel­a­tives’ care.

But fol­low­ing Chris’ death, Har­ri­son claimed a woman at the home stopped her from see­ing Hall.

 
“I am just seek­ing her in­ter­est be­cause she is like my sec­ond moth­er. She is my aunt and god­moth­er. When the woman stopped me from see­ing her af­ter these months, I got con­cerned. I came and stood up in front of the gate for a whole hour some day. Vis­it­ing hours are from 11.30 to 12.30, 4.30 to 5.30. The woman said aun­ty Sheila did not want to see me. I lived with her for years so she will talk to me. She suf­fers from Alzheimer’s and the woman is us­ing that against me.”

Har­ri­son al­so made some fur­ther claims against staff at the home. “The woman tried to make a new ID card for my aunt and I went to make a re­port to the Mon Re­pos sta­tion and the Com­mu­ni­ty Po­lice took it over from there.”

Har­ri­son said the con­di­tions in­side of the home was nor­mal but she was con­cerned about her aun­ty’s frail look.

She ex­plained that Chris used to pay the home us­ing Halls’ pen­sion grant. But when Chris died, his fam­i­ly ap­point­ed her as the nom­i­nee to over­see Hall’s af­fairs at the home.

Last Fri­day, Har­ri­son said she paid $9200 to the home to cov­er the last three months, but when she came with the doc­u­ments for Hall to sign, the home’s man­age­ment or­dered her to stop.

“The woman told her don’t sign be­cause that may be fraud. I went to the Com­mu­ni­ty Po­lice and we came here to­geth­er and got her to put her thumb prints on the three cheques. She (woman) told me she took her to a doc­tor with­out my know­ing and it cost $200. Ini­tial­ly, when my cousin brought Shiela here in May, a doc­tor said she had Parkin­son’s Dis­ease and Alzheimer’s. When I went to this doc­tor, he said noth­ing hap­pened to her and he could not give us her re­port. I am at a loss. I am in a jam now and she is my aunt.”

Staff at the home de­clined to com­ment on the sit­u­a­tion.

When asked to speak with the man­ag­er of the fa­cil­i­ty, Guardian Me­dia was told that the man­ag­er was not there.

Hall is ex­pect­ed to be ad­mit­ted in­to a new home for the aged.