* A 99-year-old woman found dead in her urine-soaked bed at an unlicensed foster home. Her caretakers waited at least 24 hours -- maybe longer -- to call a funeral home to pick her up. The home was filthy. Her body, already partially decomposed, was infested with ants and maggots.

Cause of death: heart disease.

* A 78-year-old man left in his bed at home for nearly a year, his only caretaker his son. Police found him dead, lying in his own feces, his feet gangrenous, and a bedsore so severe in his groin that his penis was nearly severed.

Cause of death: infection.

* An 88-year-old woman living in a state-licensed, skilled nursing home who fell -- no one knows how -- and fractured her skull. For days she laid in her bed, catatonic, her brain slowly bleeding. When she was finally sent to a hospital, doctors noted she hadn't been nourished in days. She was filthy, feces and dried food caking her body.

Cause of death: blunt head trauma.

* An 89-year-old woman who hadn't seen a doctor in months, but lay in her bed at home, slowly dying. Police found her dirty, with open wounds on her back and legs, her spine and bones exposed. The family couldn't afford special care, so her 66-year-old daughter cared for her.

Cause of death: bronchopneumonia.

* A 92-year-old woman who slowly starved: No one at her nursing home repaired her abdominal feeding tube when it malfunctioned.

Cause of death: infection, starvation.

* A 75-year-old man who arrived at the hospital from a Miami nursing home with nine bedsores covering his body, most of them necrotic and infected. The home waited to send him for treatment until one day before his Medicare benefits at the home lapsed. The Long-Term Care Ombudsman Council concluded the home kept him "for the Medicare payments, while providing inadequate care."

Cause of death: unknown. No autopsy was performed.

"I see abuse all the time; it's absurd," said Olivia Graves, a South Dade physician who treats the elderly and frail. "But nothing ever happens on behalf of these people because of it. Nothing."

Florida's elderly and disabled population is growing in age and in numbers. There are far more aging, retarded and disabled adults who need medical help and social services than there are places to put them or people to care for them.

The result: They end up anywhere their frustrated family and social workers can put them, often powerless prey for abuse and neglect. The abuse seems particularly pathetic since many victims die too doped up, too sick, too disabled and too confused to ask for the help that could save them.

"What's out there is the underbelly of Miami, lots of elderly and developmentally disabled people living at the mercy of who knows what," said Jim Towey, the state's chief of social services in Dade. "Some are dying. It's tragic. It's an embarrassment."

In Dade, hundreds of cases of adult abuse have been referred over the past five years by the state Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (HRS) to the Dade state attorney's office for criminal investigation.

Not one death by alleged abuse or neglect has been prosecuted.

In fact, many of those cases examined by The Herald never even made it into the hands of prosecutors -- but instead were shuffled haphazardly through dozens of state social workers and bureaucrats. Often, one investigating agency didn't even know what another was doing, or if they were doing anything at all.

Join the discussion

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.repliedToText@

@Nyx.replyAnswerText@

Reply to this Comment @Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@