Woman Conserved Despite Protest

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

A 53-year-old woman who was placed in a temporary conservatorship at the request of attorneys for the Vanderbilt University Medical Center is fighting to keep the conservatorship from being made permanent even as she is being shuttled by ambulance from one facility to another.
Reba Sherrill, a paraplegic as a result of being hit by a car, said in an interview that she was taken  from Vanderbilt to a nursing home, then back to Vanderbilt over her protests and today to a nursing facility in Robertson County.
"It's the most atrocious thing I have ever experienced," she said.
Vanderbilt Medical Center did not respond to requests for comment as did the three attorneys representing the facility.
In late August, Vanderbilt's attorneys, petitioned Davidson Probate Court to place Sherrill in a temporary healthcare conservatorship so she could be transferred to another facility.
The petition stated that Sherrill, who was admitted to Vanderbilt on Aug. 8, "no longer requires acute hospital care but instead requires admission to an appropriate facility."
She had been admitted to Vanderbilt for treatment of physical ailments. 
One day after arriving at the nursing home, Richland Place in Nashville, a facility she chose, an ambulance driver appeared telling her he was going to take her for a ride.
She said she was brought back to Vanderbilt and was there  for five or six day when she was transferred to The Waters at Robertson.
Between  the time she went to Richland and her return to Vanderbilt, her conservator had filed a report showing she had won a substantial settlement from the accident. The conservator also moved to force the settlement money to be deposited with the court. The motion was granted.
As a result of the latest move, Sherrill said it is unlikely she will be able to attend a Wednesday hearing on the petition to make her conservatorship permanent with a lawyer, Cathryn Armistead, named in Vanderbilt's  original petition to act as the overseer of her health, finances and everything else.
Her attorney has filed a motion to have the conservatorship dismissed, or in the alternative, to have her brother named as conservator. The dismissal motion states that under state law, an action for a conservatorship must be filed in the county where the person resides and Sherrill owns a home in Sumner county and she and her family have lived there for decades.
Armistead did not respond to requests for comment.
In the meantime, Sherrill said she has been dosed with a powerful anti-psychotic drug, Haldol, to which she is allergic.
She said a doctor who has been overseeing her care for years filed an affidavit confirming she should not be administered the drug. She said she already has been injected with Haldol multiple times.