After the new “guardian” took over, at the initial meeting at a Starbucks to hand over her documents (including Indian passport) with Jay’s attorney Mr. McBroom present, she warned that there would no place she could discharge Omana from Harborview to other than a shelter under Harborview’s “Bed-readiness Homeless Charity Program” where “she would not keep her dogs for a day”. She let Omana’s private insurance ( about $1000+/ mo) that Jay had maintained for 17 years on her behalf lapse, and without any notice to family transferred her to Paramount Shelter, a “facility” for the homeless that need short-term care but have no money or insurance. As per their own website, they are not capable of providing total care that a stable patient like Omana needed. Therefore they removed her urinary catheter, and put her on diapers, which were never changed. They are OFFICIALLY ranked as the worst on the dreaded Table B, which is the list of a couple dozen worst and most horrendous healthcare facilities, from among the 45,000 or so that CMS (center for medicaid services), a federal government agency, monitors for “special focus”.
Each day when Jay and other family / friends visited, they always found her neglected in her own dried feces and vomit, as can be seen from these pictures. Furthermore, here is a statement with photo from Mr. Kavesh Sharma, a family friend that visited her there. In an effort to convince the guardian to move her to another facility, her son initiated several live video sessions (using Youtube) in January 2019 when he visited his mother and shared with his family in India and with the guardian, so they can all see how she was being severely neglected at Paramount, with no diaper changes despite call light being on for several hours, or two-hour repositionings (without which her skin was showing severe breakage causing her immense pain). Jay continued his normal routine of going to the facility every day to spend as much as time as possible. She would cling on to his hand and beg him to take her home with him as she was scared of that place she called Hell in the videos in the media section. Despite Ms. Copeland’s complete lack of interest, Jay sent her an email on February 17th 2019 with a photo attached of Omana being drowned in her own vomit when he visited.
Ms. Copeland immediately responded that she forwarded the email to the facility, exposing him as a whistle-blower documenting her condition and taking pictures. On the next day (February 18th) when he visited his mother at Paramount around 11:15 AM, he was accosted by a black male (interestingly as a matter of fact, this ghetto facility’s nursing and admin staff are mostly black males who appears to have recently immigrated from African nations) who identified as Roger, an administrator at the facility. He asked Jay to handover his smartphone and that no cameras would be allowed inside. When Jay protested, he threatened Jay that “he would not be there for long” and walked away from his mother’s room.
Jay immediately reported the approach from Roger in an email to Ms. Copeland. A few minutes later, a couple of Seattle Police officers came into the room and told Jay that he had been trespassed by Roger. He immediately reported that too to Ms. Copeland in an email. With the efforts of his lawyer, he was able to restore his visitation rights.
Immediately after the takeover, all her therapies were stopped. She had been getting ST, PT and OT at home three times a week each from Providence healthcare, who had completed hundreds of visits at home for her rehabilitation. Jay had even found a Malayalam-speaking ST for her which helped to recuperate her speech immensely. All the progress from years of very effective private therapies were destroyed by this evil act, and she started regressing on her speech and physio-motor abilities almost immediately as a result of this abrupt discontinuance. She had been receiving a regular expensive regimen of botox pain injections on both her thighs every few months from her neurologist Dr. Julie Hodapp since the stroke, which immensely helped to keep her leg cramps and associated severe neuroma pain in check. At home she also used to received regular leg massages and stretching exercises that the Physical Therapists had taught Jay and the caregivers. There were also wedge pillows being used to keep her legs from cramping up. However, she stopped receiving all these services at Paramount, and without the pillows, her legs were kept in a cramped position nearly always, leading to her screaming in pain and in tears at nearly all time. As a result the duty doctor one Dr. Trang prescribed a dangerous drug Dantrolene sodium, to keep her from screaming in pain. This drug turned her catatonic yet conscious (it is a powerful muscle relaxant) which was a sheer horror state of existence for her, unable to even cry aloud.
On March 21st 2019, Omana was taken to ophthalmologist Dr. Philip Chen for a critical followup procedure to her glaucoma surgery on right eye from July 2018 when under Jay’s care, as she was developing dangerous blood vessels in that eye that needed to be removed. Albeit waiting for a long time at the clinic, Dr. Chen’s staff was unable to get hold of Ms. Copeland to provide consent. As a result she was returned to paramount with her eyes in burning pain, without the procedure being completed. In about couple of weeks, she lost vision in her right eye completely, and was inconsolable in anguish as she knew it was completely avoidable if only the guardian took 30 seconds of her time to provide consent over phone.
A cursory google search reveals that our experiences with this “Facility” are not isolated. Here are the excerpts from some of their ALL one-star Yelp Reviews:
From Jacob J.:“Horrible Care – This facility neglected to turn an immobile friend of mine (their patient) every 2 hours as required. Causing pressure ulcers and an infection that went septic resulting in the death of my already immunocompromised friend.”
From Christina F.: “A TERRIBLE PLACE. It is what nursing home nightmares are made of. It is filthy, it smells, the food is beyond terrible (makes hospital food look great) the employees are absolutely non interested and negligent. I have heard people screaming for help and left on the floor. I am in the process of videotaping events there, and will be filing suit against them in the near future.”
From Elizabeth L: “THE WORST NURSING HOME IN WASHINGTON STATE. I have witnessed residents smelling of feces and urine for hours at a time with not one of their aides stopping to check on them. I have heard residents yelling for help and not one person who walked by seemed the least bit concerned. The business office manager (the same “Mauri” who made the police report on 2/17/2019 to stop Mr. Nair’s visits and documentation of Omana’s condition) is the most unprofessional person who was very condescending and abrupt. I dont understand how she can be this way when dealing with family members who are grieving and suffering every day trying to make ends meet while their loved ones are left there to be neglected and exploited. The activities supposedly taking place were always done half assed or not at all. If you decide to tour this building and aren’t instantly turned off by the smell of urine and death, please request to go to the second and third floor….I couldn’t even type this without vomiting in my mouth a bit”
In addition, Ms. Copeland also stole $10,500 of Jay’s money from his primary bank account that he had established in 2003, dating back to which he had always used for all his own personal and business expenses, including defraying Omana’s living expenses under his care (for facilitating which he had added his mother later as she had become his Tax dependent wherein he was the head of household in his 1040s, and also he held her power of attorney). Despite providing proof of funds transfer for almost all of that money to have come from another account that Jay held 100% individually just the previous day, Ms. Copeland did not return his cash, which caused him tremendous business losses on his real estate business as he could not make critical payments before a deadline and affected his legal rights to a property in which he held over $350,000 in net equity.
Moreover, in direct contempt of the court order approving the negotiated settlement on the guardianship, she did not initiate her naturalization process (which would have provided her with medicare benefits so she could be moved to a qualified skilled nursing facility from the homeless transient shelter), or abide by the agreement to let her go home for her birthday party family and friends organized with great expectation that she had been looking forward to for many months. Omana was extremely depressed and both emotionally and physically devastated by the guardian’s psychopathic and sadistic actions.
As her condition was deteriorating by the day at Paramount, and the “guardian” was ignoring all requests to move her to a safe facility, Family was left with no choice but to file a complaint with ACLU on May 20th, and also send detailed complaint letters on May 31st 2019 to U.S Senators, Human Rights Organizations, WA State Long Term Care Ombudsman, Senior Leadership of UW-Medicine (which controls both Paramount Shelter and Harborview Hospital, including CEO Dr. Paul Ramsey, senior leadership at WA DSHS, Government of India, Consulate General of India in USA, and to as many state and federal authorities as possible to help their mother escape from her horrible neglect and abuse at Paramount Shelter, one abounded by homeless drug addicts and ex convicts where she was scared to death being rendered catatonic by Dandrolene Sodium.
Most terrifyingly, the guardian made harassing phonecalls to Family in India threatening and insinuating to allow Omana to die quickly, and even wrote an email (see page 2) to granddaughter Sukanya Susheel, that based “on the ton of research she did on Hinduism, she did not think Omana should be allowed to live in this condition”. She offered to let her pass away without suffering by withholding medicines and food. She also changed her POLST code unilaterally to NO RESUSCITATION, against the vehement opposition from Family and even a video plea from Omana herself in English pleading to allow her to live. This was also done in complete contempt of the Court order which states that her code status decisions can only be made after consulting with Family. Ms. Copeland appeared to be reveling at her serendipitous “power” over the Family, going so far as to blatantly state in condescending phonecalls and emails “your opinions are just that, opinions, at the end of the day only I can decide whether Omana should live or die”…and “I am now the head of your household” etc. Her attitude is reminiscent of the Stanford Prison Experiment.
