When elder advocate Diane Carpenter entered Our Golden Home in 2008, she found an elderly woman languishing in a recliner, soaked in her own urine.

After ordering an aide to put clean clothes on the woman, Carpenter, a supervisor with the state’s volunteer ombudsman program, heard muffled cries from the rear of the Hialeah assisted-living facility. “Help me, help me,” a man pleaded.

Curled in a fetal position, the man was burning with fever.

Carpenter ordered caregivers to call an ambulance. They refused. She then threatened to call the state’s elder abuse hotline. When paramedics finally rushed the man to a nearby hospital, they had little time to spare: He had already lapsed into life-threatening renal failure.

Three years later, the program that Carpenter represents also is in grave condition. More here.