Everyone Please Read This

[honeysuckle]

I am terribly sorry that this happened to you, and understand your anger and sense of violation.

I cannot join others in hoping for severe punishment for this woman, though. I would hope others would think to pray for her and her freedom from the cults, even though she has wounded others with her insensitivity.

 

[HashemEchad]

I want to thank everyone for your concern and your condolences…as much as the religious proselytization offended me, what bothers me more is that this woman felt it was OK to violate my family’s privacy like that. I mean, she is in Chicago! Miles away! She doesn’t even KNOW me. That’s what’s creepy.

This morning, when I first got the letter, I wasn’t sure if she got the personal info from the hospital my mom had been in right before she entered hospice, or if this woman got it from the hospice (they are separate entities, though in the same building locally.)

You see, in Feb. my mom went into the hospital (a Catholic hospital, run by nuns), but she was there a few weeks and was then diagnosed as terminal, so they sent her to hospice care (this particular hospice, in this area, rents one floor of the hospital to use, though in my case I had my mom brought home for hospice so she could die at home around family instead of with strangers.)

So this morning, after I called the hospice, I contacted the chaplain’s office at the hospital to see if maybe it was someone there. The priest-chaplain finally called me back tonight, and I told him the situation, and that I found out via the internet that it was someone connected with the hospice.

Anyway, we got to talking…I told him I’m Jewish and he sympathized with how I was feeling…he said once a JW accosted him in a supermarket while he was wheeling his father out…the guy was nasty to him when he saw the Roman collar. He said to the JW, “is that how Christians are supposed to behave?” He said the JW just looked at him.

I told him about this messageboard and he said he might check it out! I said that while I did meet some rather forceful Catholics (in terms of proselytization), most are very sweet people.

Father (oh sheesh, I forget his last name!) said that the Catholic way to evangelize is to be a living witness for Jesus…he said that is infinitely harder to do than standing on street corners, screaming at people and handing our tracts.

I agree!

(BTW, I was doing some online research to find out how prevalent this practice is, of JW’s contacting grieving family members, when I found this link, to this site here:

catholic.com/library/Strategies_of_Jehovah_Witness.asp

Maybe it should be updated to include things like what happened to me and another poster in this thread? People should be forewarned, because they are targeting people when they seem to be most vulnerable–she sure picked the wrong “target” with me!)

 

[flameburns623]

Flameburns, I don’t know how you can equate nuns encouraging a patient to embrace the faith on their deathbed at a Catholic hospital to the invasion of privacy that the OP is talking about. This is a shocking violation of privacy and creepy, too. Good for you for reporting her!

I misread the OP’s post. It’s still a bit tasteless to try to convert someone on their deathbed, particularly someone already devoutly affiliated with another faith, no matter how mistaken one may feel that faith to be. If the incident happened as described. Christie was one of the nicest human beings one would ever want to meet, even as a Jehovah’s Witness. But she was enthusiastic about her faith, and I could conceive of her actually bringing some of this upon herself, by trying to evangelize the nuns for example. Not saying that she did–again I wasn’t there. But please don’t take this as some sort of jab at Catholics–read my whole post and you’ll find anecdotes about what happened to my father with Protestant ministers as well.

All this aside–the OP’s complaint was not that someone evangelized his/her ailing mother but that someone accessed personal information in an effort to evangelize himself or herself. While I dislike the use of litigation for these sorts of things, certainly the institution needs to take positive steps to ensure that not only is the individual responsible held accountable, but that others in the institution know that something like this is thoroughly out-of-bounds.

 

[LaMar]

What these cults won’t stoop to!!

I’m sure I’ll be flamed by my fellow Mo’s for this, but it’s (sadly) a Mormon tactic also.

We’re a little bit more subtle, in that Mormons often send a pair of sympathetic missionaries to the door after the death of a loved one, who pretend (badly, usually) that they had no idea that a beloved family member had just been lost. They have a nice story about how “families can be together forever”…

I don’t say this to hijack your thread, but only to let you know that this type of cultlike tactic has disgusted me from the day I realized it was going on, and I have never indulged in it myself. Not surprising that JW’s do it. I know Scientologists do it also. I apologize on behalf of all my people, as I believe (no proof, just a suspicion) that we formulated and perfected this loathsome stunt.

I’m so sorry about your mother, by the way. I’ve never agreed with you on much, but I respect you a great deal, and I know she must have been very proud of the daughter she raised up.

Best,

LaMar

 

[morning_star777]

i am sorry for your mother’s death.god bless her soul.AMEN

 

[mozart-250]

Funny thing, my wife and I were talking about a similar incident the other day up here.

She works as a nurse in a nursing home. One common problem is dealing with JW who visit the patients as missionaries.

The family can stop this if they have power of attorney and stipulate no JW missionaries as visitors. Some families where she works have done that, when that happens she asks them to leave.

Anyway, sorry about the passing of your mother.

 

[angelusm]

JW are a horrible sect. But in your post you are criticising not only JW but also the attempt to convert you. Our duty is to lead Jews to Jesus and it will not change no matter how many times you will try to discourage us to do so. Salvation is only in the name of Jesus.

 

[HashemEchad]

JW are a horrible sect. But in your post you are criticising not only JW but also the attempt to convert you. Our duty is to lead Jews to Jesus and it will not change no matter how many times you will try to discourage us to do so. Salvation is only in the name of Jesus.

Whatever. I don’t think you realize just how many times I’ve heard that song and dance.

The complaint I had, mainly, was that personal, confidential information was misused in a way that the agency never intended for their employees to do. And which is highly illegal, both locally and Federally.

As for the conversionary attempt, I have had MANY MANY people (mostly Christians of various persuasions) try to convert me, without success. I know my own faith too well, and believe in it too strongly, for anything like that to work.

Its not as if I’m a lost soul, drifting far from their faith and family, weak, vulnerable and with low self-esteem (which are usually the types that cults target.)

 

[HashemEchad]

Angelusm, I had one other comment, and I don’t want to derail my own thread with this, but I have to ask:

In other threads, you have said things that came across as antisemitic. Therefore, this leads me to wonder why you would even want Jews to join your religion?

It just makes no sense.

 

[ralphinal]

This is a question for the attornies on here: can this be a form of harrassment? I know about the privace issue, but it was the use of illeagle information to contact someone about a topic that they may have no interest in.

I am sure that the JWs as a whole cannot be sued, but if this can be proven to happen on a grand scale, could they? If this was “church practice” to harrass people in hospitals and funeral parlors, could something else be done?

 

[ibkc]

JW are a horrible sect. But in your post you are criticising not only JW but also the attempt to convert you. Our duty is to lead Jews to Jesus and it will not change no matter how many times you will try to discourage us to do so. Salvation is only in the name of Jesus.

There are appropriate ways to evangelize and inappropriate ways. Inappropriate ways do more to harden hearts against the faith, and that is what this JW woman has done.

 

[Lapell]

I did some more searching (thank God for the internet!) and just got off the phone with the supervisor at the Chicago VITAS Hospice where this woman works.

They asked me to send them copies of everything she sent, and they said they will take action.

I’m also going to send it to the national office for the hospice.

I’m thinking a lawsuit would be a good idea, because I feel very violated right now…if this woman whom I don’t even know, in another state, could get my mother’s confidential health information (and MY home address!), is anything safe from strangers?

What if she wanted to do harm to me instead of just proselytize? Does this mean no ones personal health information and contact information is safe?

Anyway, here is the website I found when I put her name into the search engine for Google (she was really dumb to sign her real name and address to the letter she sent me!):

vitas.com/staffnews/medicine.asp

OH! Just having read this now, I just have this thought: what if that person who sent you it was not the one by that name? I certainly hope you got the right person, not a victim of a theft of identity…

 

[Lapell]

Angelusm, I had one other comment, and I don’t want to derail my own thread with this, but I have to ask:

In other threads, you have said things that came across as antisemitic. Therefore, this leads me to wonder why you would even want Jews to join your religion?

It just makes no sense.

Antisemitism in some people might be a gut reaction from not having succeeded to have converted a Jew who moreover had let it know in strong words that he or she would never convert to their faith;
I don’t know, however, if they would learn that this Jewish person converted to their faith (though not through them, would their antisemitism fade away then? I don’t know…

 

[CarrieH]

This is a question for the attornies on here: can this be a form of harrassment? I know about the privace issue, but it was the use of illeagle information to contact someone about a topic that they may have no interest in.

I’m not an attorney, but I am a nurse who deals with confidential information on a daily basis. One problem is the matter of determining if it was illegal information. If the obituary even said something as vague as “died of cancer (or whatever),” listed the OP’s name among the survivors, and listed the hospice among the places where the family would like memorial contributions to go, then it has become public information. Thanks to the internet, people can look up your address and phone number with little effort, and use it for whatever purpose they wish. If that person is who they say they are, and did obtain the info via the hospice, they should be fired on the spot. They would be, at the hospital where I work. My employer has a zero-tolerance policy re: confidentiality violations.

HashemEchad, I am very sorry for your loss, made worse by having to deal with this rubbish at such a painful time in your life. God bless.

 

[HashemEchad]

This is a question for the attornies on here: can this be a form of harrassment? I know about the privace issue, but it was the use of illeagle information to contact someone about a topic that they may have no interest in.

I am sure that the JWs as a whole cannot be sued, but if this can be proven to happen on a grand scale, could they? If this was “church practice” to harrass people in hospitals and funeral parlors, could something else be done?

I had a similar question. This afternoon I had occasion to speak to someone who, it turns out, is a world-renowned cult expert and “exit counselor” (he is actually a friend of an old friend of mine, so I decided to call him to see what he knew of an organized plan by JWs to do this.)

Anyway, his name is David Clark and he knows just about everything and anything there is to know about cults. Its his job.

He told me that yes, he was very familiar with the JW strategy of seeking out grieving family members, by getting their members to get jobs in the health care field that will enable them to be in sensitive positions like this (i.e., hospice care.)

But he told me something else which to me, sounded even more insidious, and which I’d not thought of.

He said their strategy is not only to win a possible convert as a result of contacting family members when they are grieving, but also, a possible estate. After all, the next of kin usually inherits whatever the deceased person had, and if they convert to JW, the inheritance goes along with them (many cults make their members sign their bank accounts over to them, or they do it willingly.)

I’d never thought of that aspect of it until he told me!

 

[HashemEchad]

I’m not an attorney, but I am a nurse who deals with confidential information on a daily basis. One problem is the matter of determining if it was illegal information. If the obituary even said something as vague as “died of cancer (or whatever),” listed the OP’s name among the survivors, and listed the hospice among the places where the family would like memorial contributions to go, then it has become public information. Thanks to the internet, people can look up your address and phone number with little effort, and use it for whatever purpose they wish. If that person is who they say they are, and did obtain the info via the hospice, they should be fired on the spot. They would be, at the hospital where I work. My employer has a zero-tolerance policy re: confidentiality violations.

HashemEchad, I am very sorry for your loss, made worse by having to deal with this rubbish at such a painful time in your life. God bless.

Because my husband and I were victimized 2 years ago by identity thieves who stole our credit card and racked up 5K of bills before they were caught, I know how information in obits can be misused by people. So when I was asked by the funeral director for info re: the obit, I made sure that all it contained was my mother’s name (not even her maiden name), and the date she died, as well as mentioning that she had "X number of children and X number of grandchildren as survivors.) The funeral and burial was private also, so not even info on that was given out.

Its good I did that, because knowing that enabled me to narrow things down a lot faster (and the internet sure helped too!)

Something another poster said gave me pause to think: what IF the woman who is on the internet website is not the one who did this? IOW what if she is also being a victim of identity theft? Or maybe its a co-worker wanting to get back at her for something?

Since the company is doing a thorough investigation, I guess we’ll find out. If she truly is a religious person, she won’t lie if she did do it. But I tend to think its her: I have it on good authority that JWs do this kind of thing a lot.

 

[rpp]

My Father passed away in October and I also received a letter from a (the same?) crazed JW woman.

My mother who is 83 and blind, became very upset after I read only a couple of sentences to her. I never finished the letter. She could not understand how a person would do something so cruel. My Mom immediately thought it was scam or an attempt to give something of my Dad’s estate to a church group.

I did not try to track down this woman. Now I wish I had kept the letter. I wonder if she is the same person. If it is and she is using company resources to do this, she should be fired. Heck, she should be imprisoned.

 

[ora_pro_nobis]

HashemEchad,
first of all I am very sorry for your loss, may your mother rest in peace.

Like many other posters, I find the behaviour of this woman appalling and I hope you get some redress for the pain this has caused you.

 

[HashemEchad]

My Father passed away in October and I also received a letter from a (the same?) crazed JW woman.

My mother who is 83 and blind, became very upset after I read only a couple of sentences to her. I never finished the letter. She could not understand how a person would do something so cruel. My Mom immediately thought it was scam or an attempt to give something of my Dad’s estate to a church group.

I did not try to track down this woman. Now I wish I had kept the letter. I wonder if she is the same person. If it is and she is using company resources to do this, she should be fired. Heck, she should be imprisoned.

I’ve been doing some asking around, and it seems the JWs do this a LOT. Its likely the person who sent your mom that letter was not the same person. I’m reall,y really sorry it also happened to you and your mom.

I received a phone call from not only the immediate supervisor of the woman who did this, but also from the national director of privacy for the national office of the hospice. Both profusely apologized, and they also thanked me for reporting it; they said the only way they can do anything is when families DO report it.

Anyway, the webpage with her award and profile has been taken down because she is on “administrative leave” while they wait to get the evidences I sent them, and I also reported it to the US dept of Health and Human Services (they have a special website for reporting privacy violations of peoples’ health info.)

ora pro nobis, Thanks so much (and thanks to everyone else too!)

I wanted to make a request, if anyone ever has this happen to you, PLEASE report it to the hospital/nursing home/whoever treated your loved one. Its the only way to stop it!

One way I knew for sure the JW did not get my info from the obituary, is that I put very little info in the obit that could enable anyone to contact me. Be sure never to put any detailed info in obituaries, such as home addresses of families, etc

I told my funeral director about this incident, and she told me that this is one reason why Jewish obits no longer give the home address of the family for shiva purposes (in Judaism, obituaries would usually list the home address where shiva, or the Jewish mourning period, was being observed after the burial…that way, relatives and friends could go there to console the family…since in Judaism we do not have viewings before the burial.)

She said missionaries would go through the obits and send literature to the address given for shiva visitation! So evidently its been going on for a while.

 

[Zooey]

HashemEchad:

I want to thank everyone for your concern and your condolences…as much as the religious proselytization offended me, what bothers me more is that this woman felt it was OK to violate my family’s privacy like that. I mean, she is in Chicago! Miles away! She doesn’t even KNOW me. That’s what’s creepy.

I agree. This is really scarey, that someone has used confidential information in this way.
I am so sorry that this happened to you! I am glad that you are following through on this horrible incident. Hopefully, your efforts will help to save someone else from this kind of:banghead: cruel invasion of privacy.

May your mother’s soul rest in peace.