From The Gallup Independent in New Mexico:GALLUP, N.M. — When Karen McKinney (pictured) took her stand against two hired caregivers on April 24 — firing them after she said they abandoned her for five days — it was like rolling her wheelchair onto a battlefield.
McKinney, a 56-year-old disabled woman who is confined to a wheelchair after years of struggling with progressive spinocerebellar ataxia, quickly found some allies in a few concerned community members who were witnesses to what they saw as the neglect and abandonment of McKinney and her mother, an Alzheimer’s patient.
She also quickly made some enemies. Her brother, Gallup businessman John Leever, had brought McKinney and their mother from Texas, had arranged for them to move into a rental house owned by his employee’s aunt and uncle, and had hired a series of caregivers to look after the women. He was not happy McKinney had fired the most recent caregivers. Neither was his employee, Melody Lucero, the niece of McKinney’s landlord, Julian Mestas. According to McKinney and Mestas, Lucero responded by attempting to evict McKinney out of the home McKinney had been renting.
Instead, Mestas evicted the caregivers and eventually helped McKinney issue a no trespassing notice against Leever and Lucero.
But as to officials with New Mexico’s Adult Protective Services, McKinney found silent bureaucrats where she thought she would find supportive allies. Leever and Lucero declined to be interviewed for this story.
According to a booklet about elder abuse, printed by the New Mexico Coalition Against Domestic Violence and underwritten partially with funds provided by the New Mexico Human Services Department, “Abandonment is defined as the desertion of an elderly person by an individual who has assumed responsibility for providing care for an elder, or by a person with physical custody of an elder.”
McKinney said her two most recent caregivers, a pair of sisters, had abandoned her and her mother when they disappeared for five days in April. Mestas, a next-door witness to the daily goings-on in McKinney’s house agreed, as did Rose Garcia, the neighbor across the street. They were joined by Margaret Diaz, a supervisor at Gallup’s North Side Senior Center, who had begun sending lunches to McKinney and her mother after learning the women weren’t being regularly fed by their caregivers.
It was Diaz, trained on her job to recognize signs of neglect, abuse, and abandonment relating to senior and disabled citizens, who made the first of several referrals to Adult Protective Services. According to Diaz, she had made referrals to APS before, with satisfactory results. She and Mestas made several police and social service reports in the belief that Adult Protective Services officials would investigate the allegations of neglect and abandonment and assist by helping provide legitimate caregivers for McKinney.
While waiting for state officials to act, Garcia, Diaz and Mestas and his wife assumed all the day to day care of McKinney, who was now on her own since Leever and Lucero had removed McKinney’s mother from the house.
Each day, on their personal time, they lifted McKinney in and out of bed, prepared her meals, helped her dress and undress, assisted with all her personal hygiene needs, and took her to doctor appointments and other errands.
Diaz, who said she has no experience as a personal caregiver, said she stepped in to help because she saw McKinney’s need. “I saw that need from the first minute I met Karen, and my heart just went out to her,” she said. Diaz also credits the staff at the Community Pantry who began sending McKinney care boxes filled with groceries and personal care items.
Garcia does have experience as a caregiver. In addition to raising five children and helping to care for a young grandson now, Garcia said she used to work at Red Rock Care Center.
“All my life I’ve been a caretaker,” she said, “that’s all I know.”
Garcia said she stepped in to help McKinney because she couldn’t ignore the fact that a disabled person had been abandoned in the house across the street. “I just don’t think I could live with myself,” Garcia said. “I just couldn’t leave her.”
Any hope that McKinney, Mestas, Diaz, and Garcia had for speedy intervention by Adult Protective Services quickly faded. According to Diaz, the first caseworker assigned to the case seemed indifferent to McKinney’s welfare. A frustrated Diaz proceeded to contact other Adult Protective Services officials since the caseworker’s investigation seemed to be going nowhere. “They actually told me there’s nothing they can do,” Diaz said.
Finally, the Independent was contacted. Faced with the Adult Protective Service’s protective wall of confidentiality, the newspaper asked McKinney to sign a notarized statement, waiving her rights to confidentiality and granting permission to state social service officials to talk to the newspaper about McKinney and her need for caregiver assistance. In spite of that document, state officials have steadfastly declined to comment on the record to the Independent about McKinney or their actions or inactions regarding her.
Eventually, however, Rudy Grano, from the Adult Protective Services office in Grants, was apparently asked to step into the case. Based on her previous professional contact with Grano, Diaz was pleased with Grano’s involvement. He has since made a number of visits to McKinney’s home, often showing up while the Independent has been conducting interviews.
According to McKinney and Garcia, Grano recently told them the state has approved providing Garcia with a small monthly check to help pay for part of the personal caregiver services she is providing McKinney.
On Thursday, John Arnold, a state public information manager, contacted the Independent and said the Adult Protective Services Division of the New Mexico Long-Term Services Department has taken “appropriate action” on McKinney’s case and has no further comment.
After about 16 months of living with caregivers who McKinney believes were neglectful and abusive, McKinney is optimistic about the caregiver assistance she will receive from Garcia, a neighbor McKinney now considers a friend.
She does, however, continue to worry about her mother’s healthy and safety. She would like to have regular contact with her mother, as long as it doesn’t involve any contact with her former caregivers, her brother, or Lucero. Although McKinney said she wishes she had the ability to have her mother live with her, she knows that because of her own physical disability and her mother’s Alzheimer’s, that’s not a realistic possibility.
McKinney also acknowledges that eventually the progressive nature of her own medical condition will require her to move into a facility where she can receive 24/7 care, but she hopes that won’t be too soon. “I want to be as independent as long as I can,” she said.
In the meantime, McKinney is no longer afraid of the people who have access to her home, and she is enjoying the ability to eat when she’s hungry and sleep when she’s tired. She’s also happy with the peace and serenity of her quiet home – now free of angry and intoxicated caretakers and frightening strangers. A longtime Methodist, McKinney wishes she could also reach beyond the walls of her home and become part of a local church community.
The Independent did attempt to solicit comment from Leever and Lucero. Through a telephone statement made by Lucero, Leever declined to comment. Lucero also declined to comment although she denied she ever told her uncle to evict McKinney from her home.
