CRANSTON, R.I. (WPRI) — Robert Butler, who drew international attention when he was moved from a Providence nursing home with a crane earlier this year, has died at Eleanor Slater Hospital, Target 12 has learned.
State police confirmed troopers provided escort for Butler’s body to a cemetery. When asked about Butler’s death, Executive Office of Health and Human Services spokesperson Michael Raia said he could not provide many details.
“I can confirm that an Eleanor Slater Hospital patient with very complex medical needs passed away on Monday,” Raia said. “Special arrangements were carried out today for a private funeral with the highest regard for the patient’s dignity as would be the case for any patient at the hospital.”
Butler had reached out to Target 12 in April after he said his bed at
Bannister House broke. He claimed he was not being cared for properly and that after the bed broke, he was left in his own waste. The facility’s Director of Nursing Jamima Tutu said that claim was not true.
Butler also said his food intake was not restricted enough at Bannister House, but Tutu said the patient confidentiality law
(HIPAA) would not allow her to comment on his diet or whether or not he’d gained weight while living at Bannister House. The nursing home is in receivership and facing more than $2 million in debt, but Raia said at the time that the bankruptcy was not the reason Butler was moved.
“Bannister was not equipped to meet his medical needs,” Raia said back in April.
I’m willing to chance dying on that operating table instead of dying in this bed.” Robert Butler in 2006
After learning about his move, Butler said he hoped he would get more
help at Slater with what he called his “addiction to food.” But he also said he was apprehensive about going there. After his first day in the facility, Butler had only one word to describe how he felt.
“Awful,” Butler wrote in a text to Target 12. Butler did not return phone calls or text messages during his nearly three months at the state hospital.
Butler’s weight left him on permanent disability more than a decade ago. He originally reached out to Eyewitness News in 2006 when he was trying to get a stomach operation. At the time he weighed 900 pounds and said he was too heavy for the procedure, which he pointed out was not covered by Medicaid.
“It’s odd because the government will give me money to survive every month. But they won’t help me to get off disability,” Butler said at the time. “I want to work. I want to start a career again. I’m willing to chance dying on that operating table instead of dying in this bed.”
Raia said the plan to move Butler took weeks to plan, but he would not comment on the taxpayers’ cost of the seven-hour operation, which included the state paying a private crane company that worked with personnel from several agencies, including Providence’s police and fire departments and state police.
Raia emphasized the metal shipping container that the crane lifted down from a Bannister House deck in April was modified with medical equipment to keep Butler safe and stable during the move to Cranston.