My uncle is an alcoholic (not drinking now but on morphine and Xanax), has been in and out of hospitals and is terminal. When he’s stable enough to be released from the hospital but needs additional care, they send him to a nursing home. He continues to go against the doctors and checks himself out. They say that they can’t make him stay against his will. Once he’s home, he is verbally and sometimes physically abusive to my aunt. What can we do? I live across the country, so I can’t physically be there.
You cannot. And certainly cannot from across the country.
Aunt can leave and come to you; you can go and collect her and call APS. If he is safe home, then he is safe home ALONE and they can assess that.
No one deserves to live in abuse. On the other hand your AUNT has CHOSEN this for her life up until now. I think you will find it likely she continues to make the same choice.
Morphine and Xanax? Wow. Who needs booze when you have doctors delivering that duo?
If this is a hospice situation (you do not mention a dire diagnosis here) then this is self limiting. If Aunt wants to leave she can leave, even if that means going to a shelter. But there is, from where you are, very little that you personally can do about this other than open your home to Aunt if she wishes to come by you.
Do they have children?
If your Aunt wants no protection, then other than calling APS there is nothing you can do.
My mother would of protected mean dad though anything he did to her. So there probably isn't much you can do
Like others have pointed out, if the Aunt continues to allow him back into the home then there's nothing much anyone can do. You or someone would have to go there in person to help her navigate getting him transitioned into a facility/hospice permanently. She has the power to call 911 when he's abusive. If she won't do this then there's nothing anyone can do.
Options: consider having a phone consult together with her with a divorce lawyer to get council, just to navigate the "abandonment" issue to see if there's any truth to it and to know how to protect herself financially and otherwise until that jerk has his final check out. Maybe you need to secretly take her in until that jerk does his final check out.