"To tell you the truth, it seems easier for someone to get guardianship in Broward."

Emergency guardianships in Broward have become a convenience for a host of people other than the elderly people who end up in them.

State social workers, required by law to provide protective services to abused, neglected or exploited old people, instead frequently turn clients over to professional guardians.

Hospitals, eager to discharge frail elderly patients quickly once an insurer stops paying for their care, have done the same.

"It was a matter of people looking for a solution to their problems, and the ETG was the first thing they grabbed," said Gary Armstrong, past president of Broward's professional guardian association. "It was bad judgment. Unfortunately, the ETG has been inappropriately used."

Until May of last year, elderly people in Broward were often stripped of rights after a professional guardian had a private conversation with a judge, who then signed papers authorizing emergency guardianship. Elderly people lost control of their lives before getting a chance to dissent and without having a court-appointed attorney to defend them -- a clear violation of state law.

Spurred by court officials who realized elderly people were hurt by the one-sided procedure, Chief Probate Judge W. Clayton Johnson ordered reforms.

General masters, court officers who hear testimony and make recommendations to judges, are now available two days a week to field requests for emergency guardianships. A court-appointed attorney is present to represent the elderly or disabled people in question, although the lawyer doesn't always meet his or her client first.

Abuses persist. In recent weeks, court officers have begun forcing some guardians, social workers and hospitals to exhaust alternatives to emergency guardianship. State law, for example, allows social workers to go to court and win authority to give people help even if they don't want it.

Hospitals, instead of calling guardians, can help a patient's longtime friend become their health-care proxy, legally entitled to make decisions for a confused person without stripping them of any rights.

"The major thrust will be making people prove that there are no less restrictive alternatives to guardianship," said Goglio, who works for Judge Johnson.

"That may mean making the hospital social workers come in and testify as to why can't the hospital do anything else. They are looking for the person who is starting the ball rolling to begin taking some liability for their decision."

In a court file documenting Rothman's fight to regain control of her life is a handwritten note from a court official observing that the widow narrowly escaped becoming "another ETG fatality."

It is little comfort to Rothman that she won a battle she should never have had to fight. Losing control of her life even temporarily, especially as her husband of 50 years was dying, was a horror, she said.

"I didn't know who to trust," Rothman said. "I was so afraid."

On a recent afternoon, Rothman sat in the living room of her Miramar home, a metal walker stood in front of her armchair, a blanket covered her thin legs. Rothman pointed to a black-and- white photograph of her and her husband on the boat to America. They were tall and handsome then.