A kindhearted citizen has stepped in to save 98-year-old Mrs O, the home-alone widow with dementia and diabetes who has been refused any financial aid from Government.Liz Stewart, whose own mother has Alzheimer's disease, said she barely slept a wink on Wednesday night after reading about the vulnerable senior's plight in The Royal Gazette.Determined to do something, she visited Mrs O first thing yesterday morning, accompanied by Ms H, the elderly lady's former employer, and a friend who is a nurse at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.She and the nurse bathed and dressed Mrs O, chatted with her and then set about organising proper care for the next few days.A carer who has already been looking after Ms H visited yesterday between 12pm and 9pm and has offered to the same in future days.Ms Stewart also returned yesterday evening with Ms H and took a professional carer from Bermuda At Home Services to be with Mrs O overnight.Ms Stewart was in the process of setting up a charity for Alzheimer's sufferers and had already raised $5,000 when she read about Mrs O.That money will now go towards paying for at-home care for the senior and Ms Stewart hopes to raise further funds in the coming days and weeks.“She's definitely got a little bit of dementia but I wouldn't say she's really bad,” said Ms Stewart, a senior vice president at Alterra Bermuda.“She seemed fairly with it but she's old. She just needs caregiving. She needs people in there just to make sure she's fed and clean and comfortable and lying down and sleeping at night.”As our story on Wednesday revealed, Mrs O has been spending 21 hours a day alone, sleeping at night in a hard-backed chair in her kitchen on an incontinence pad.She was recently found wandering in her yard at night in a diaper and vest and is now locked into her property by Ms H for her own safety.Government insists it has “provided all the assistance possible” since it became aware of Mrs O's situation in March.It says she cannot get anything from the Department of Financial Assistance, under the Financial Assistance Regulations 2004, because she has a “life interest” in her rundown family home, meaning she can live there until she dies.Mrs O was assessed again by Department of Health social worker Katherina Gibbons on Wednesday but Ms H has not heard anything back since then.Ms Stewart questioned how the social worker could leave Mrs O alone in her own home for another night.“She [Mrs O] was there sitting in her dress this morning. She needs to be put in a nightdress at night and put to bed. She might not need anybody there at night, she might be fine between 11pm and 7am in bed. But she needs help with washing and dressing.”Ms Stewart added: “It doesn't seem like there's anybody really assessing the situation, saying ‘who is her GP? What are her medical needs? What's her legal situation?'“There seems to be no coordination of anything. One hand [in Government] doesn't talk to the other hand. If they think somebody else is doing something, they will let them do it.“I literally couldn't sleep thinking about it. It's just wrong; really, really wrong. It wouldn't take much to improve her situation. It just takes some will to get it done and then, obviously, it's going to take some money, because people have to be paid to come in and change her and give general caregiving.”She said a number of people had already indicated they'd like to make a donation and she hoped others would come forward. She believes at-home care is the best option for Mrs O as the upheaval of moving could be traumatic for her.Ms H said she was grateful for the help of Ms Stewart and other offers of assistance received but described Government as “a lost cause”.“The whole idea of this [article in The Royal Gazette was to shake them up. It's not working.“The community is coming around but not Government. They are just digging their heels in and they are not going to do anything.”This newspaper posed another set of questions to Government on Wednesday evening about Mrs O. We asked:l Who it expected to pay for Mrs O's care;l Whether Mrs O was in a position to make decisions about her own care;l Whether Government, in suggesting residential placements for Mrs O since March, had made any offer to assist with paying for such care;l Whether the Ministry of Health organised transport for Mrs O to attend a day programme at the Sylvia Richardson care facility;l Whether the Ministry was aware of problems with access to Mrs O's house;l Why National Office for Seniors and the Physically Challenged (NOSPC) case manager Dennika Williams did not arrange for an ambulance to take Mrs O to KEMH, after suggesting she be taken there so the hospital could form a care plan for her;l Whether Ms Williams had received further training since her suggestion, specifically on the NOSPC's policy “that persons should only be taken to the hospital if they are in need of acute medical care”;l Whether Ms Williams had suggested to any other NOSPC clients they be taken to hospital so the hospital could form a care plan?l How Government expected Mrs O to be able to pay for a $13,800 a month place at KEMH's continuing care unit, when her income, after health insurance is deducted from her pension, is $400 a month;l Whether Government was satisfied Mrs O was seeing out her final years with dignity?l Whether it felt the NOSPC had been, as its website pledges, “responsive to the consumers (sic) needs by enabling them to have increased hope for empowerment which leads to a better quality and productive life” in this case?A Ministry of Health spokeswoman responded: “Assessments indicate that Mrs O has the cognitive ability to make her own decisions about her care.”Government said in this year's Throne Speech it was “reviewing the eligibility criteria for Financial Assistance so that seniors owning their own home are not automatically excluded from access to Financial Assistance”.l The Royal Gazette will publish details of how to donate money to help Mrs O once a bank account has been set up. In the meantime, anyone interested in pledging funds can e-mail sstrangeways@royalgazette.bm.