This is actually an older news story, and it does appear as though she recovered from this before her death.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14389544
Depends on if she was mentally competent or had competent representation looking out for her.
It’s extremely easy for a 93 YO to fall between the cracks, even with loving family trying to look out for you, because there’s an army of predators looking to take advantage of the feeble elderly, plus the habits of individuality that many elderly cling to instead of asking for help.
And even if she had someone mentally competent, the system can be so convoluted it is easy to miss benefits you qualify for OR, and this is a big one no one talks about, have trouble getting approved for these things in a timely manner that is actually help when they need it. Sorry, it might take 6-24mo for you to get that help.
It takes a lot of human labour to process those applications and organize resources, just being able to get through to someone on the phone to talk about it is hard enough then you have to explain your situation which for someone elderly or with mental health considerations can be difficult, then the call gets passes to someone with more specialist knowledge or authority which again takes, time normally days, and that’s assuming you know what you need and where to ask.
Having someone that actually knows all about the options available and who can make early assessments then-and-there would be a life saver for so many of the most at risk. With ai that’s very possible, obviously not current gen LLMs but as we perfect specialized models with verification and tasking steps they’ll get ever more useful for getting people the help and access to resources they need.