April 17, 2008
CommonWealth magazine
A decade is a long time. But advocates for senior citizens have been trying to drum up support on Beacon Hill for guardianship reform for at least that long. Seniors without relatives or close companions can end up, and hundreds do, under the care of court-appointed guardians who get carte blanche over their medical and legal decisions. Judges often issue snap judgments on these cases, usually without a detailed review of the status of these “unbefriended elders.”
So when a recent Boston Sunday Globe Page One investigation described this little-known controversy, the story struck a real nerve. “The writers did an excellent job describing the challenges of the guardian system,” read one Brookline woman’s letter to the editor. Elder Affairs Secretary Michael Festa called the article an “exclamation point” on a systemic problem. Most important, a hearing held by the Legislature’s Joint Committee on the Judiciary on bills addressing guardianship concerns drew a far larger turnout of judges, registrars of probate, and lawyers than in past years. “There was definitely a big ripple,” says Wynn Gerhard, managing attorney for the Greater Boston Legal Services’ elder law unit.