A Texas Mess

The Dallas Morning News reports of some heavy duty abuse and neglect within its 10 State Hospitals. What I believe it really comes down to is a combination of a few things. People with disabilities are not valued by the general community as much as their non disabled counter parts. There is also an ongoing issue around educating the general community regarding the systemic challenges faced by the disability community. I hope I'm changing that, if only slightly.

Reports show systemic abuse at Texas' psychiatric hospitals

By EMILY RAMSHAW / The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – Patients with severe mental illness are committed to Texas' state psychiatric hospitals to be protected from themselves. Instead, some are suffering vicious abuse from the very caregivers hired to look after them.

Last year, one state mental hospital employee tackled an adolescent patient who was sobbing for his mother, dragging him across the floor by his wrists and hair.

The year before, another brought a female patient into a hospital bathroom and sexually abused her.

And dozens more have participated in brutal beatings at the psychiatric hospitals since 2005, employee disciplinary reports show – using chokeholds, headlocks and threats of violence to restrain the patients under their watch.

In all, 72 employees across Texas' 10 state mental hospitals have been fired in the last three years for allegations of physical abuse, according to a Dallas Morning News analysis of state personnel records. Hundreds more have been terminated for other violations, the records show, from sleeping on the job to over-medicating mentally ill patients.

State officials say there will always be some reports of abuse and neglect in an institutional setting. And they say they take any allegations of mistreatment seriously. But the records show that as in other state-run facilities, abuse and neglect are systemic.

The state's juvenile prisons, group homes for the disabled, and state schools for people with mental disabilities all came under fire last year for reports of widespread physical and sexual abuse. The state psychiatric hospitals, like other systems for vulnerable Texans, are chronically starved for cash, advocates of more state funding say, and services at the local level can't keep up.

"You get what you pay for," said Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, who has bipolar disorder. "When you financially dumb something down, you make services cheap, something's got to give. Unfortunately, it usually ends up being a mentally ill or disabled Texan."

Officials with the Department of State Health Services, the agency that runs the psychiatric hospitals, say abuse and neglect are "absolutely not" pervasive – and verified cases are actually dropping.

In the last two years, they confirmed 15 "Class I" cases – the most serious abuse. On average, investigators substantiate 5 percent of the more than 2,000 allegations they examine annually. And nearly 90 percent of patient deaths since 2005 were attributed to natural causes, agency spokesman Doug McBride said. Five were suicides, and none were the result of abuse.

"Keep in mind there are about 7,400 employees, 18,000 patient admissions and probably hundreds of thousands of staff-patient interactions in a year," Mr. McBride said.

State officials acknowledge that the psychiatric hospitals are stressful environments; there are times, Mr. McBride said, when employees "do not handle a situation appropriately." But they say the rules for reporting abuse and neglect are stringent – and confirmed cases of physical and sexual abuse are reported to police.
And they balk at the suggestion that conditions bear a resemblance to the state schools for people with mental disabilities, where the U.S. Justice Department has intervened twice in recent years.

The state psychiatric hospitals, which have about 2,500 patients daily, had 137 confirmed abuse cases in 2007. The state schools for people with disabilities, which have twice as many residents, have an average of 300 confirmed abuse cases per year.
But some advocates fear the mentally ill patients may face greater risks. Patients of the psychiatric hospitals are largely indigent, transient and not connected to their families, so they have few allies as they bounce through the mental health system.

"It's a population that's easy to abuse because they're not on the radar in any way," said Richard Hansen, a Texas mental health advocate who was chemically restrained, shackled and beaten to the point of broken ribs years ago while suffering from bipolar disorder in a New York mental hospital.

But there are few alternatives, advocates say, because smaller community-based services are as strapped as the state system.

Fired hospital workers

Among the allegations of abuse and neglect state hospital workers have been fired for since 2005:

• A worker at the North Texas State Hospital slammed a clipboard on a patient's head, dragged her by her feet and kicked her in the legs and buttocks.

• An employee at the Big Spring State Hospital failed to notice a patient who knotted her sheet and strung it around her neck. The patient was blue by the time staff found her.

• At the Austin State Hospital, a male employee brought a female patient into a private room for her to carry out a sexual act on him.

• An employee at the Austin hospital tackled a juvenile patient and pinned the patient's neck and head to the floor, bloodying his lips and face and breaking his glasses.

Other employees were punished for offensive treatment, from using racial slurs on patients to making verbal threats and sexual advances. Some ignored patients' cries for help while they watched TV, played video games and wrote text messages. Others stole state property and sold tobacco products to patients.

Mr. McBride said employees are carefully screened and are terminated the moment they're found unfit for their jobs.

Mr. Hansen said many employees are conscientious, but conditions vary from hospital to hospital and ward to ward. Some are simply warehouses, where patients are often overmedicated and ignored. In others, patients frequently turn up with unexplained injuries, he said.

Unexplained death

Jason Evans called 911 in November during a bipolar meltdown and was admitted to the Terrell State Hospital. Days later, the 34-year-old was dead – and his parents still don't know why.

State officials told the Kaufman couple that their son, who was severely mentally ill but in good physical condition, had been disruptive that evening, and records obtained by the family indicate hospital workers medicated him before sending him to sleep. Mr. Evans was apparently found hours later in his bed, and was no longer breathing.

Lynn Evans, his mother, said psychiatric hospital workers attributed the death to natural causes, and doctors said her son had lost oxygen to the brain. But she and Mr. Evans' father, a pharmacist, have been unable to get specific details about their son's death. They believe Jason was effectively overdosed by hospital workers trying to restrain him.

"It was a disease. Jason couldn't help it," said Mrs. Evans, choking back sobs. "In my heart, I will go to my grave knowing that hospital killed him."

Mr. McBride said that the agency is prohibited from confirming the identities of anyone in their care – but that any unexpected deaths are investigated by the Department of Family and Protective Services or by local law enforcement.

"There were no deaths among Terrell State Hospital patients last fall from anything other than natural causes," he said.

Experts say the troubles at state psychiatric hospitals are the same ones facing any institutionalized care facility. Employees are overworked and underpaid. Many entry-level workers have little education and training. And upper level managers battle high turnover rates while struggling to find qualified staff.

The problems are compounded by the fact that many psychiatric hospital patients don't have support networks. They've frequently alienated their families through a cycle of homelessness and incarceration. They often are sent to the hospital by a judge. And their length of stay – just over a month, on average – gives employees little time to build personal relationships and empathy for the patients in their care.

Aaryce Hayes, a mental health policy specialist with Advocacy Inc., said the Department of State Health Services is working to improve the state hospital system, from incorporating trauma-informed treatment into care regimens to increasing employee empathy training. It is also trying to reduce reliance on restraint and seclusion to keep control of patients.

"They get it," she said. "They want to see a culture change."
But it's hard to improve when the state hospital system is so overburdened, Ms. Hayes said. Right now, the state funds just 27 percent of mental health needs in the community – meaning everyone else rotates in and out of crisis care. There are more than 450,000 adult Texans with serious and persistent mental illness, everything from schizophrenia to major depression, Ms. Hayes said.

"If we said we were serving just 27 percent of people who had cancer, or diabetes, nobody would be comfortable with that," Ms. Hayes said.

Money is a persistent problem. In 2003, lawmakers stripped $100 million from the state's mental health budget, Mr. Coleman said – funding that has only partially been replaced.

The Legislature approved $82 million last year to improve community mental health crisis services, said Robin Peyson, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness' Texas chapter. But Texas ranks 48th in the country in per capita funding for people with mental illness, so that money only begins to address the shortfall.

"There are not services at the community level and there are not enough beds in the system," she said. "If you have inadequate funding, you're just supporting this cycle, this revolving wheel."

Staff writer John Jordan in Austin contributed to this report.

Domestic Violence and People with Disabilities

I realize this is short notice, but I just obtained permission to post it. I've been saying abuse and neglect is domestic violence for some time now. Apparently there are others who see it the same way.

Domestic Violence and People with Disabilities: What you should know

Join Jewish Women International in a 60-minute live teleconference presented by Nora J Baladerian, PhD, licensed clinical psychologist, licensed marriage and family therapist, certified sex therapist and board certified forensic examiner. Presently, Dr. Baladerian is the director of the Disability, Abuse and Personal Rights Project in Los Angeles, California.

Dr. Baladerian has worked in the area of abuse of people with disabilities since 1972and is an expert in conducting evaluations, and clinical interventions of suspected sexual abuse and assessments with children and adults with developmental disabilities. She consults with attorneys and law enforcement agencies providing expert witness consultation and provides training for law enforcement, protective services, therapists, and disability specialists regarding prevention and detection. Dr. Baladerian was awarded the 2008 National Crime Victims Service Award from the Department of Justice’s Office of Victims of Crime.

The live conference will take place:

Thursday, May 8, 2008
12:00 – 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time

REGISTER NOW

Pre-registration is necessary to participate in the call. Please note that while Jewish Women International pays for the bridge fee for the call, each participant is responsible for their individual long distance charges.

Colorado For Example

In Oregon our Legislature hasn't done any where near enough to take care of our citizens with developmental disabilities. I write about it all the time. I also attend meetings where I can point out these short comings in the hope that if they won't do the right thing because it's the right thing, maybe they can be shamed into it.

I found these bills that have had their second reading in the Colorado Legislature. This is the kind of laws that need to be in effect right here, right now. I've highlighted some pertanant keywords.

HB08-1101 by Representative(s) Gardner B.(R), Gardner C.; also Senator(s) Renfroe(R), Spence–Concerning increased state funding for services for persons with developmental disabilities for the purpose of reducing waiting lists for such services.

HB08-1246 by Representative(s) Green(D); also Senator(s) Keller(D)–Concerning the creation of a registry of caregivers who are deemed to have a substantiated allegation of wrongdoing against a person with a developmental disability, and making an appropriation therefor.

HB08-1047 by Representative(s) Gardner B.(R), Pommer, Soper; also Senator(s) Boyd(D), Keller, Spence, Williams–Concerning the creation of a set aside program for a nonprofit agency that bids for state services solicitations when the nonprofit agency employs persons with severe disabilities, and making an appropriation therefor. (Health and Human Services recommends the bill be amended as printed in Senate Journal, April 25, 2008, page 1153.) (Appropriations recommends the bill be amended as printed in Senate Journal, April 28, 2008, page 1200.)

I Couldn't Pass This Up

Her's a great story on how big pharma is enlisting doctors to lie about drugs that are harmful and/or ineffective. The fact that the article deals with a local doctor from OHSU who came clean makes it even more compelling. From Naturalnews.com...

Former Shill for Big Pharma Tells the Truth About Drug Testing
by Heidi Stevenson (see all articles by this author)


(NaturalNews) Erick Turner, a psychiatry professor at the Oregon State Health and Sciences University, woke up one day and realized that he was acting as a shill for pharmaceutical corporations. Worse, he was promoting drugs that not only provide very little benefit, but also do great harm. In spite of the benefits paid to him, including accommodations and thousands of dollars, and the ego satisfaction of being recognized as a "Very Important Person" by his fellow physicians, his conscience wouldn't let him continue.

So, Dr. Turner turned on his pharmaceutical masters. He spoke out against the products he'd been promoting. In the January 2008 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, he published an article telling the truth about one class of drugs, SSRI antidepressants, such as Prozac and Paxil. In interviews, he has spoken even more broadly, stating that the lack of efficacy of SSRIs is the "dirty little secret" of the psychiatric world.

Dr. Turner's odyssey began in 2004, when he started selling his reputation by giving "doctor talks", as they're called in the industry. These lunches or dinners are lavish affairs, provided by pharmaceutical corporations. A doctor who is appealing, for either his or her background or appearance and style -- preferably both -- speaks about the wonders of a particular drug. Erick Turner's particular appeal was having been a researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health for seven years, and then a clinical trials reviewer at the FDA.

He was trained by Eli Lilly to give talks, which required that he use only the visuals provided by the pharmaceutical firm and stay with their talking points. Then, Turner was sent to do doctor talks. The money he made wasn't significant to him, $500-750 per talk, a small amount in terms of his total income. However, as he put it, "In the beginning, I think I got narcissistic gratification. They fly you somewhere else in the country and pick you up in a limo, and you stay in a nice hotel you could never afford otherwise."

Within 18 months, though, Turner began to feel pangs of conscience. As he put it, "I guess you could say I bit the hand that fed." He published a paper in PloS Medicine that argued for online publication of all clinical trials produced for the FDA. Although he went from drug company advocate to critic overnight with his argument against pharmaceutical hiding of data, the article was... well, it was ignored. His article was met with a big yawn in the medical world.

Turner quit giving the doctor talks and started to search for hidden drug trial data. At first, he found some in hidden-away parts of the FDA's website. He then looked to researchers for data, and got it from a Seattle researcher and one at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. "I literally went down to a Kinko's," Turner stated, "and photocopied them."

The studies he'd found consisted of 74 clinical trials, with 51% showing results that were better than placebo and 49% with negative or mixed results. In other words, about half the trials, though they'd been produced for drug corporations and most likely were attempting to produce the desired results of showing benefits, did nothing of the sort.

Armed with the smoking gun proof of negative trials being hidden, Turner produced a paper, "Selective Publication of Antidepressant Trials and Its Influence on Apparent Efficacy" for the New England Journal of Medicine. This time, he wasn't ignored.

Daniel Carlat, assistant professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine, himself once on the dole with Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, argues, "The fact that the negative trials can just be hidden away means that practicing doctors can get a very false notion of efficacy data for a drug. That's the real crisis here."

The question that must be answered is how pervasive the pharmaceutical firms' hiding of negative studies is. It's obvious from Erick Turner's exposé that SSRIs are generally useless. What about other drugs? History shows us that the same must be true.

Take, for example, Vioxx, an NSAID used for arthritis and other chronic pain. It causes heart attacks and has killed over 60,000 people in seven years. Could its manufacturer, Merck, have withheld information from doctors and the public?

Did Wyeth withhold information about Fenphen, two drugs combined to act as a single weight loss drug? It killed people by causing pulmonary hypertension.

What information was withheld by Hoechst Marion Roussel on Seldane? It was a wildly popular prescription antihistamine, which was withdrawn because it caused heart arrhythmia.

The number of drugs withdrawn because of their risks, which were likely known by the manufacturers, is stunning.

The cat is now out of the bag regarding SSRIs. If they work, it's only rarely. The known risks are extensive and appalling. Most, if not all, school shootings involved the use of SSRIs, or their next-generation offshoot, SNRIs. Suicide rates increase after starting them. Weight gain is often a problem, indicating a potential link to diabetes. Sleep disturbances and sexual dysfunction are fairly common. Many people have a great deal of difficulty withdrawing from these drugs. None of these problems were revealed during pre-approval clinical tests, but the fact that they're common begs the question. How many trials showing these dangers were suppressed?

Ultimately, the real question is how many people have died or suffered irreversible harm from ingesting the products of drug manufacturers? How much information is being hidden by the pharmaceutical manufacturers, all in the interest of obscenely high profits?

How innocent are doctors in all this? It's quite clear that they have been deeply involved in the cover-up. Whether they benefit from gifts or boosts to their egos from doing bogus doctor talks, or simply fall for the cute sales reps -- recruited primarily from the ranks of cheerleaders -- so that they close their eyes to pathetically weak statistics, how believable is it that they don't know? When thousands of people outside the medical profession can find out the truth about pharmaceutical poisons, why do the doctors seem to be largely unaware?

You might think that Dr. Erick Turner, the man who exposed the withholding of negative information by drug manufacturers, would have stopped prescribing the SSRI drugs that he focused on. But that's not the case. Although he says that he doesn't give patients false hope about their efficacy, he still prescribes them.

It's no wonder that doctors are so disconnected from reality. From the time they're in medical school, they're bombarded with pseudo-information from pharmaceutical manufacturers. They receive gifts to such a degree that a Lancet study found "approximately 50% of the items that residents carry have pharmaceutical company origins".

When doctors enter private practice, it's hardly surprising that they often become billboards and prescription machines for pharmaceuticals. As Dr. Jay S. Cohen wrote, "No wonder patients complain that many doctors look like walking advertisements for the drug industry."

Pharmaceutical corporations are so pervasive that, as described by the Washington Post in 2002, "In the days leading up to the American Psychiatric Association's meeting in Philadelphia [2002], pharmaceutical companies mailed attendees hundreds of free phone cards, as well as invitations to museums, jazz concerts and fancy dinners... And in several dozen symposiums during the week long meeting, companies paid the APA about $50,000 per session to control which scientists and papers were presented and to help shape the presentations."

Is it any wonder that doctors have become so utterly disconnected from their responsibility to protect their patients from harmful drugs? It's no wonder that they seem to be so unable and unwilling to look at drug company reports critically. It's no wonder that they have become little more than drug pushers, forever pressing the latest pills on their patients, without considering the risks and the obvious suppression of information about the products they prescribe. It's no wonder that when, finally, after a few years of prescribing a particular poison, they're informed that it's been recalled, they immediately jump on the bandwagon of yet another highly-promoted, research-suppressed so-called "wonder" drug. And then, they repeat the pattern yet again.

The pharmaceutical industry has so controlled the medical industry -- and with the doctors' full cooperation -- that even the doctor who blew the whistle seems to have no idea how to proceed without prescribing the very medications that he knows are ineffective in most cases.

Couldn't Pass This Up

Here's a good article on how big pharma is using doctors to promote drugs that are harmful and/or ineffective. The fact that it deals with an Oregon doctor from OHSU who was caught up in this scam makes it even more interesting. From aturalnews.com...

Former Shill for Big Pharma Tells the Truth About Drug Testing
by Heidi Stevenson (see all articles by this author)


(NaturalNews) Erick Turner, a psychiatry professor at the Oregon State Health and Sciences University, woke up one day and realized that he was acting as a shill for pharmaceutical corporations. Worse, he was promoting drugs that not only provide very little benefit, but also do great harm. In spite of the benefits paid to him, including accommodations and thousands of dollars, and the ego satisfaction of being recognized as a "Very Important Person" by his fellow physicians, his conscience wouldn't let him continue.

So, Dr. Turner turned on his pharmaceutical masters. He spoke out against the products he'd been promoting. In the January 2008 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, he published an article telling the truth about one class of drugs, SSRI antidepressants, such as Prozac and Paxil. In interviews, he has spoken even more broadly, stating that the lack of efficacy of SSRIs is the "dirty little secret" of the psychiatric world.

Dr. Turner's odyssey began in 2004, when he started selling his reputation by giving "doctor talks", as they're called in the industry. These lunches or dinners are lavish affairs, provided by pharmaceutical corporations. A doctor who is appealing, for either his or her background or appearance and style -- preferably both -- speaks about the wonders of a particular drug. Erick Turner's particular appeal was having been a researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health for seven years, and then a clinical trials reviewer at the FDA.

He was trained by Eli Lilly to give talks, which required that he use only the visuals provided by the pharmaceutical firm and stay with their talking points. Then, Turner was sent to do doctor talks. The money he made wasn't significant to him, $500-750 per talk, a small amount in terms of his total income. However, as he put it, "In the beginning, I think I got narcissistic gratification. They fly you somewhere else in the country and pick you up in a limo, and you stay in a nice hotel you could never afford otherwise."

Within 18 months, though, Turner began to feel pangs of conscience. As he put it, "I guess you could say I bit the hand that fed." He published a paper in PloS Medicine that argued for online publication of all clinical trials produced for the FDA. Although he went from drug company advocate to critic overnight with his argument against pharmaceutical hiding of data, the article was... well, it was ignored. His article was met with a big yawn in the medical world.

Turner quit giving the doctor talks and started to search for hidden drug trial data. At first, he found some in hidden-away parts of the FDA's website. He then looked to researchers for data, and got it from a Seattle researcher and one at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. "I literally went down to a Kinko's," Turner stated, "and photocopied them."

The studies he'd found consisted of 74 clinical trials, with 51% showing results that were better than placebo and 49% with negative or mixed results. In other words, about half the trials, though they'd been produced for drug corporations and most likely were attempting to produce the desired results of showing benefits, did nothing of the sort.

Armed with the smoking gun proof of negative trials being hidden, Turner produced a paper, "Selective Publication of Antidepressant Trials and Its Influence on Apparent Efficacy" for the New England Journal of Medicine. This time, he wasn't ignored.

Daniel Carlat, assistant professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine, himself once on the dole with Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, argues, "The fact that the negative trials can just be hidden away means that practicing doctors can get a very false notion of efficacy data for a drug. That's the real crisis here."

The question that must be answered is how pervasive the pharmaceutical firms' hiding of negative studies is. It's obvious from Erick Turner's exposé that SSRIs are generally useless. What about other drugs? History shows us that the same must be true.

Take, for example, Vioxx, an NSAID used for arthritis and other chronic pain. It causes heart attacks and has killed over 60,000 people in seven years. Could its manufacturer, Merck, have withheld information from doctors and the public?

Did Wyeth withhold information about Fenphen, two drugs combined to act as a single weight loss drug? It killed people by causing pulmonary hypertension.

What information was withheld by Hoechst Marion Roussel on Seldane? It was a wildly popular prescription antihistamine, which was withdrawn because it caused heart arrhythmia.

The number of drugs withdrawn because of their risks, which were likely known by the manufacturers, is stunning.

The cat is now out of the bag regarding SSRIs. If they work, it's only rarely. The known risks are extensive and appalling. Most, if not all, school shootings involved the use of SSRIs, or their next-generation offshoot, SNRIs. Suicide rates increase after starting them. Weight gain is often a problem, indicating a potential link to diabetes. Sleep disturbances and sexual dysfunction are fairly common. Many people have a great deal of difficulty withdrawing from these drugs. None of these problems were revealed during pre-approval clinical tests, but the fact that they're common begs the question. How many trials showing these dangers were suppressed?

Ultimately, the real question is how many people have died or suffered irreversible harm from ingesting the products of drug manufacturers? How much information is being hidden by the pharmaceutical manufacturers, all in the interest of obscenely high profits?

How innocent are doctors in all this? It's quite clear that they have been deeply involved in the cover-up. Whether they benefit from gifts or boosts to their egos from doing bogus doctor talks, or simply fall for the cute sales reps -- recruited primarily from the ranks of cheerleaders -- so that they close their eyes to pathetically weak statistics, how believable is it that they don't know? When thousands of people outside the medical profession can find out the truth about pharmaceutical poisons, why do the doctors seem to be largely unaware?

You might think that Dr. Erick Turner, the man who exposed the withholding of negative information by drug manufacturers, would have stopped prescribing the SSRI drugs that he focused on. But that's not the case. Although he says that he doesn't give patients false hope about their efficacy, he still prescribes them.

It's no wonder that doctors are so disconnected from reality. From the time they're in medical school, they're bombarded with pseudo-information from pharmaceutical manufacturers. They receive gifts to such a degree that a Lancet study found "approximately 50% of the items that residents carry have pharmaceutical company origins".

When doctors enter private practice, it's hardly surprising that they often become billboards and prescription machines for pharmaceuticals. As Dr. Jay S. Cohen wrote, "No wonder patients complain that many doctors look like walking advertisements for the drug industry."

Pharmaceutical corporations are so pervasive that, as described by the Washington Post in 2002, "In the days leading up to the American Psychiatric Association's meeting in Philadelphia [2002], pharmaceutical companies mailed attendees hundreds of free phone cards, as well as invitations to museums, jazz concerts and fancy dinners... And in several dozen symposiums during the week long meeting, companies paid the APA about $50,000 per session to control which scientists and papers were presented and to help shape the presentations."

Is it any wonder that doctors have become so utterly disconnected from their responsibility to protect their patients from harmful drugs? It's no wonder that they seem to be so unable and unwilling to look at drug company reports critically. It's no wonder that they have become little more than drug pushers, forever pressing the latest pills on their patients, without considering the risks and the obvious suppression of information about the products they prescribe. It's no wonder that when, finally, after a few years of prescribing a particular poison, they're informed that it's been recalled, they immediately jump on the bandwagon of yet another highly-promoted, research-suppressed so-called "wonder" drug. And then, they repeat the pattern yet again.

The pharmaceutical industry has so controlled the medical industry -- and with the doctors' full cooperation -- that even the doctor who blew the whistle seems to have no idea how to proceed without prescribing the very medications that he knows are ineffective in most cases.

The Abuse Keeps Coming

My nephew spent the first 8 years of his life in Poughkeepsie, New York. If he and his mom hadn't moved to California, chances are good he would have wound up living in a group home by now. Maybe he'd be living in the group home where this sadist worked. This news piece comes courtesy of the poughkeepsiejournal.com.

Police: Care aide shot clients with BB gun

By Lindsay Suchow and Michael Woyton • Poughkeepsie Journal • April 26, 2008

A Town of Poughkeepsie man faces a felony charge after he allegedly fired a BB gun at four mentally challenged men who were in his care, the Dutchess County Sheriff's Office said.


Ryan Howley, 21, was charged with one count of second-degree assault Wednesday. He was arraigned and sent to Dutchess County Jail on $25,000 bail.

Howley was employed by the Dutchess County Advocacy Respect Community, formerly known as the Association of Retarded Citizens, as a direct-care aide, police said.

Police said Howley fired the airsoft-style rifle at the men, who were described as "profoundly mentally retarded," multiple times over a period of three weeks.

The men, ranging from 47 to 70 years old, suffered welts on their faces and bodies, police said.

Police said it appeared Howley shot the men as a means of punishment.

Crys McCuin, Dutchess ARC executive director, said Howley no longer works for the agency. She said his employment was terminated after the police became involved in the investigation.

McCuin said the victims have been medically assessed and appear to be all right, in spite of some bruising.

Their families have been notified, along with the state Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, New York State Association for Retarded Children and the Dutchess County Department of Mental Hygiene.

"Most importantly, we are grateful for the quick, supportive response of the Dutchess County Sheriff's Office who were critical in ensuring this allegation reached what we believe to be the best outcome for the people we serve at Dutchess ARC," McCuin said.

Reach Lindsay Suchow at lsuchow@poughkee.gannett.com or 845-437-4825. Reach Michael Woyton at mwoyton@poughkeepsiejournal.com or 845-451-4518.

Spoke Too Soon In Last Post

From today's Oregonian comes this news snipet. My question is if there are sexual predators living in this home, why isn't ALL behavior being closely monitored by the staff? My other question is are either of these "patients" in this sexual relationship a sexual predator??


Officials look into report of sex, drugs at Cornelius group home
Posted by Jill Rehkopf Smith, The Oregonian April 23, 2008 11:25AM

Categories: Top Stories, Washington County

Law enforcement officials are investigating the possibility of sex- and drug-related crimes at Connell House, the controversial treatment center for "guilty except for insanity" patients in Cornelius.

The investigation began April 15 when Cornelius Police Department officers were called to Connell House because a resident had cut himself with a razor. After the resident's injury was treated, Washington County Sheriff's Office deputies interviewed him.

The man reportedly told deputies he had cut himself because he wanted to go back to the Oregon State Hospital in Salem and didn't want to be around sex offenders.

Three of the seven current Connell House residents deemed "guilty except for insanity" have committed sex crimes. Several other patients are civilly committed to the home.

The man told deputies his roommate had sex with a female patient the previous day and had pestered him for sexual activity despite his rejections. Also, the man said his roommate and another patient were getting high on Vicodin they had concealed.

Deputies said the patients in question acknowledged having sex. The man's roommate has since voluntarily returned to the state hospital.

Deputy Jason Yazzolino reported that Kathryn Urhausen, service coordinator for Connell House, said she knew about the pair's relationship and that no rule forbid sex between patients there.

Cornelius Police Chief Paul Rubenstein said he was concerned that female residents might not have the mental capacity to consent to sex.

- Jill Rehkopf Smith;

Nursing Home Abuse Story

Our elderly citizens (parents, etc.) are not immune from abuse in the Nursing Homes we place them in. Expect me to report these case on my blog until more is done to ensure the health, safety, human, and civil rights of people in the care of others. From today's NursingHomeLaw.org...

Three indicted in abuse case
Posted on April 23, 2008 in Blog by Evan
Controversy surrounds Gateway Care and Center in Portland, Oregon.

Most recently, three former employees have been indicted for failing to summon help when a 60-year-old woman was dropped and broke her legs. Five days after the fall in 2006, Linda J. Ober was brought to the hospital, where she died the next day.

Last December, Ober’s daughter filed a $3.5 million lawsuit for the wrongful death of her mother. The suit claims that Ober was dropped when being moved from her wheelchair to her bed, and that while she was clearly in pain, the workers tried to convince her that she had not fallen but simply “had a bad dream.” The suit states that workers “did unlawfully and knowingly withhold necessary and adequate physical care and medical attention” from Ober. Following the fall, two women were fired from the home and one resigned. The same three have been indicted and are expected to be tried in June.

Prior to these indictments, the home was facing other legal troubles. One lawsuit, filed in late January, accused Gateway of persecuting a worker for reporting patient abuse. Melissa Muir says Gateway rearranged her hours so they clashed with her other job, forcing her to resign, as retaliation for reporting patient neglect. Muir was three weeks into a six-week employment stint.

Furthermore, Gateway earned 13 citations for failing to comply with federal nursing home standards. Rick Harding, director of Gateway, believes these numbers cast a bad light on the home; it is not uncommon for homes to rack up several demerits at a time. Only 14 of Oregon’s 138 homes passed citation-free during the same evaluation. Regardless, Gateway needs clear improvement.

An Open Letter to Portland Dog Owners

Dear Dog Owners,

As the warmer and drier weather approaches, many of you who spent the Winter in your houses are now comfortable enough to take walks in the morning. That's a good thing; God bless you. I see you out with your pooches in my neighborhood by the score.

I also see the piles of feces being carelessly left behind on the green spaces between the street and the sidewalk. I see dogs running ahead of you, unleashed and unsupervised as you take in the fresh air you've been missing.

I want to believe that you are unaware of the messes your dogs are leaving in your neighbor's yards. You are so friendly and quick to smile and nod as you walk past me. I don't want to think that you are so selfish that you think it's ok for your dog to poop in your neighbor's yard as you continue your morning jaunt. I recently confronted one of you only to be told; " It happens in my yard too", as if that justifies your behavior.

Let's see if a little responsibility won't remedy this problem. Carry a bag, pick up your dog's poop, and follow the leash law the same way you follow the many other civil laws in our city.

Thanks so much,
David

Can I Get a Witness?

Ok, it's Autism Awareness Month. Many people from both the disability and general community are blogging about it. I have no problem with the idea of educating people around disability issues. That's one of the reasons I set up my own blog in the first place. It just seems to me that there isn't enough discussion about disability life.

However; in all the stuff I've read lately about autism in blogs, I've seen a statement over and over that really disturbs me. People keep saying that there are more cases of autism than diabetes, cancer, and AIDS combined. I swear I've seen this at least 20 different times since the beginning of April. Why does this bother me?

AUTISM IS NOT A DISEASE!!!
For God's sake, can't people find another way to get the point across that autism numbers are increasing without comparing it to life threatening diseases? It's like people saw this statement and decided it was a good idea to use it themselves. Why not say there are more cases of autism than all the apples in the orchard. Or there are more cases of autism than the stars you can see on a clear night.
Just had to get that off my chest...

A Sound Investment

According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics in DC there are some heavy investors in companies with Department of Defense contracts in Congress. I expected that it would involve more Republicans and was curious who would make these investments. I was not pleased to find that the man I voted for to become president in 2004 was at the top of the list (significantly!).

Senator Kerry struts around saying the occupation in Iraq is wrong, so he invests in it?
Johnny we hardly knew ya.

The Investors: Lawmakers with the most money invested in companies with Department of Defense contracts

	Minimum	Maximum
Lawmaker	Investment	Investment
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass)	$28,872,067	$38,209,020
Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ)	$12,081,050	$49,140,000
Rep. Robin Hayes (R-NC)	$9,232,037	$37,105,000
Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr.(R-Wis)	$5,207,668	$7,612,653
Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif)	$2,684,050	$6,260,000
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich)	$2,469,029	$8,360,000
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WVa)	$2,000,002	$2,000,002
Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wis)	$1,365,004	$5,800,000
Rep. Kenny Ewell Marchant (R-Texas)	$1,163,231	$1,163,231
Rep. John Carter (R-Texas)	$1,000,001	$5,000,000

Save The Date!

In light of several articles written in the Oregonian in recent months, a community meeting has been set up to discuss ways of dealing with the crisis of abuse and neglect experienced by adults with developmental disabilities in our state. The idea is to brainstorm ideas on what can be done NOW instead of waiting for the legislature to convene in 2009.

Come and share your thoughts/wisdom about domestic violence, ombudsman programs, protection task forces, and common sense on how we can combat this ongoing problem in Oregon. The meeting will take place at the United Way building at 5:00 PM on April 14th. It will be held in room # 10. The address is 619 SW 11th Ave. If you care about the safety and well being of this underserved population, come and let your voice be heard.

REALLY Making People Aware

The average Oregonian is probably unaware that April is Autism Awareness Month. That opening statement is pretty odd, isn't it? To make one aware of something you must tell them about it. I don't know about you, but I haven't seen much local publicity around this. However; in good ols New York they aint afraid to make the general public aware. From the Saturday New York Times...
-------------------------------
Dozens Walk In Queens To Raise Awareness Of Developmental Disabilities

April 05, 2008

Walkers pounded the pavement in Queens Saturday to show support for an organization dedicated to serving people with disabilities.

Dozens of people came out for the 33rd annual five-mile walk sponsored by the Queens Centers for Progress.


Organizers say the walk is not only about raising money.

"It's often the case that unless someone has a family member with a disability, they really don't know too much about developmental disabilities and what people with those conditions can do, and we find this a good educational opportunity," said Charles Houston of the Queens Center for Progress.

Today's walk was dedicated to a Department Of Environmental Protection Worker who was killed by a hit-and-run driver.

For the tenth year, The Palace Diner in Flushing showed its support by supplying food for the marchers.

A Silver Lining?

I know I post a lot of stories relating to the abuse and neglect of people with developmental disabilities on my blog. That’s only because there are a lot of them. As this story demonstrates, it doesn’t have to be that way. This comes out of California from the Amador Ledger Dispatch.

------------------
Stories of abuse highlight dangers for
developmentally disabled community

Tuesday, April 01, 2008
By Bethany Monk, Amador Ledger Dispatch

She said a prayer after he shoved her into the trunk of his car. When they finally got to the house, he locked her in a dark closet where she would bury her head into her arms and see the blood dripping from her body. She was 10 years old.

"I had anger for a long time," said Sherri Douglas, a member of the Consumer Abuse Awareness Team, following the team's presentation last week at the American Legion Hall in Martell. More than 65 people attended the March 26 event, sponsored by The Arc of Amador and Calaveras in Sutter Creek and San Andreas, and Operation Care in Jackson.

Douglas, who lives in Chico, and three other members of the team, shared their personal stories of abuse and survival with the audience and discussed ways to help stop it. After sharing their respective stories, each speaker showed a brief slide show of pictures of "our lives now," Douglas said, adding that she's not the same person she was during her years of abuse. After getting help, and working to recover from her abuser's actions, she decided to help others. Douglas works full-time for the Northern Regional Medical Center and the abuse prevention program in Redding "talking to consumers about their rights - teaching consumers how to say 'no.'"

Operation Care is a non-profit organization that provides domestic violence and sexual assault support services, and crisis intervention and education; the Arc of Amador and Calaveras provides support and services to people with developmental disabilities. This is the second time these two organizations have collaborated and sponsored this event. Their first event was held two years ago in the same location.

"Each of (the team members) has their own story of abuse," said Lynn Shield, executive director of Operation Care, in a brief interview during the presentation. Other members of the Consumer Abuse Awareness Team who spoke during the presentation include Rosie Johansen and Shelly Anderson, both of Redding, and Glen Pollock from Chico.

By sharing their stories, they can spread the word and help others. "They're human beings. Everyone should be treated with respect," Shield said. "These kinds of things are important," Shield said of the presentation. "It shows (people) that they're not alone ... if you are in an abusive situation, tell someone (you trust)."

Douglas echoed Shield during her presentation when she advised those in the audience to "keep on telling people until you find the the right person - until someone listens."

Abuse is not limited to physical, Shield said. There's verbal abuse, such as yelling and screaming and put-downs; there's emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse and financial abuse, she said, "especially of someone with developmental disabilities," who often get taken advantage of in that area.

According to statistics provided by Operation Care, people with disabilities have a four in 10 higher risk of becoming a crime victim; nearly 50 million people in the U.S. have a disability.

Pollock told the audience that 80 percent of women and 54 percent of men with developmental disabilities have been sexually assaulted. Ninety-nine percent of those abusers are people whom the victims trust, like caregivers and family members, he added, noting that his data comes from writer and researcher Dave Hingsburger, who has written several books on the topic.

Abuse prevention education and resources are both a large part of The Arc's curriculum, said Peggy Cunningham, director of services at the Calaveras branch in San Andreas. Fifteen Arc members from the San Andreas location attended Wednesday's presentation in Jackson, Cunningham said, adding that they all found it very informative. Several members from the Arc of Amador in Sutter Creek also attended the event.

"The most important thing is education," she said during a phone interview Friday, noting that several speakers from the Calaveras Crisis Center have given presentations at The Arc to "teach people to have determination, and teach them about their rights."

It can be challenging to say "no" to something big like abuse, "unless you've been able to say 'no' to small things in the past," Shield said. Integrated into The Arc's curriculum on abuse prevention is teaching assertiveness and how to say "no" to smaller things, like "No, I don't want these peas."

Shield, who has worked with disabled people since 1969, said society's perceptions about people with disabilities have changed a lot in the past 10 years. "The public at large is becoming more aware" of people with disabilities, she said.

Operation Care, established in 1980, offers several services and resources for men and women who have been abused or sexually assaulted. The 24-hour crisis number is 223-2600 or (800) 675-3392. To reach the main office, call 223-2897.

For more information about The Arc of Amador and Calaveras counties, call 267-5978.

Happy Birthday Senor

Today marks the 81st anniversary of the birth of a great civil and human rights champion. Why aren’t we celebrating this day (legal holiday) in Oregon? Although he’s been gone since 1993, the memory of Cesar E. Chavez lives on strongly in the hearts of many Oregonians.

Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin have all seen fit to honor him on this day. I thought “Little Beirut” would surely sound a charge to get this done. After all; the rest of the country seems to think of us as liberal and ground breaking. Is this not really true of us?

Back in New York, where I grew up, I remember the grape and iceberg lettuce boycotts of the 70’s led by Cesar. I was just a kid but recall thinking it was (and still is) important that people came together in unity to make a difference in the lives of others.. People all over the country hitched their wagons to his efforts, and inspired similar actions in Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin. He was truly a great man.

So on this day I want to state that I believe Oregon needs to get off our collective duff to honor Cesar E. Chavez with a legal holiday!

Reasons for an Epiphany

I wrote the other day about an interaction that I witnessed at a Plaid Pantry here in Portland. It involved a man with an apparent developmental disability who was probably living on his own, with little or no support. It wasn’t a very serious problem at the store, but I wrote about my concerns that similarly situated folks face. It’s imperative that these folks have the supports they need! Here’s why... from Vindy.com

Parents get probation for starving child, 3
Published:Saturday, March 29, 2008
By D.A. Wilkinson

A worker in a nutrition program for women and children notified authorities.
LISBON — A “low-functioning” couple may lose custody of their children after authorities found their 3-year-old child weighed just 16 pounds, authorities said. The good news is the child is apparently doing well, authorities added.

The couple was not in a program such as the Columbiana County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities and did not have jobs, said Timothy McNicol, the assistant county prosecutor who handled the case. Daniel R. Clutter Jr., 33, and his wife, Tabitha Lynn Clutter, 24, of Wilbert Avenue, East Liverpool, were sentenced Friday. Each had pleaded guilty earlier to a felony charge of endangering children.

Judge David Tobin of common pleas court ordered them to serve five years’ probation, with the first month served in the Eastern Ohio Correctional Center in Jefferson County, a prison alternative facility.

The parents were absolutely convinced they were taking care of their infant daughter, McNicol said. The couple lived off Social Security disability benefits. “They didn’t have a phone and didn’t know how to get a cab,” McNicol added.

The Clutters were able to seek help from a federal program for the needy known as the Women, Infants and Children Program. The program provides a variety of food, including milk, to mothers and children up to age 5.

The Clutters realized “that the one thing the child would like is milk,” McNicol said. A worker in the WIC program saw the child and notified authorities. “It’s very fortunate,” McNicol said, adding the worker “may have saved the child’s life.”

The little girl’s brain began to shrink either because it was shutting down due to a lack of food or as a means of self-protection, he said. “No evaluation was able to say one way or another that there was any permanent injury from the starvation,” McNicol added. Any problems the child may have could be hereditary or from the starvation. “There’s no way to tell,” McNicol said.

Since the case came to light last year, the couple has had another child. McNicol did not know the gender of the child. An older brother is being cared for by relatives. All three children are expected to be placed in foster care programs.

wilkinson@vindy.com

Epiphany at Plaid

I went into my neighborhood Plaid Pantry yesterday to make a purchase. I found what I was looking for and headed up to the counter to pay for it. When I got to the counter there was a man in front of me buying a soft drink.

The first thing I noticed was that this man was somewhat disheveled and looked like he was either homeless, developmentally challenged (and living on his own), or had mental health issues. Once I heard him say “hi” to the clerk, I figured out that he had a developmental disability.

He put the drink on the counter in front of him and handed the clerk a dollar bill. The clerk opened up the cash register and made the sale, handing the man back his change. Then the man just stood there with a slight smile on his face. He and the clerk looked at each other for about 5 seconds, until the silence was broken by the clerk saying; “OK, that’s it”. The man then said “goodbye” and walked out the door.

I found the interaction between these guys to be kind of funny, and asked the clerk if he knew the man. He replied; “Yeah, he comes in here all the time. I used to work with people like him. They’re really harmless.

I was a bit taken back by this statement. I asked him what he meant by “harmless”, and he told me that a lot of people are “afraid of people like him”.

That got me thinking about March being Developmental Disability Awareness Month here in Oregon. It makes me wonder when the general public is going to receive any real information about people with developmental disabilities. I wonder if there will ever be a campaign to inform people in general about the challenges these folks face on a daily basis.

The clerk was a good 6’ 4”, weighing well over 250 Lbs. He had a shaved head and a long pointy goatee. His eyebrow, both ears, and nose all had jewelry in piercings. Both of his bulky arms were covered in tattoos. As I walked out of the store I found myself rolling my eyes, smiling, and shaking my head.

Where the Hell is the OMBUDSMAN PROGRAM?!?!

There’s a glaring need yet to be addressed in all the dancing around the abuse/neglect of people with developmental disabilities in Oregon. That is an INDEPENDENT Ombudsman program. There needs to be a mandate that group homes and foster care homes must work cooperatively with this program.

It should involve unannounced visits at all times of the day and night, where a trained person comes into these residences and checks out what’s going on. The only paperwork they should be concerned with is medical, incident reports, and communication logs. They should interview both the people living there and the staff who work there. If the resident(s) are unable to communicate, the investigator should ask more questions of more people who know the individual. Finally, the non communicative person should be flagged as being a potential target.

If the ombudsman has suspicions or finds that abuse or neglect is in fact taking place, Protective Services AND the police should be notified. The police must be mandated to work cooperatively with Protective Services in investigations. They must receive the proper training on how to do this.

Until such a program is put into place expect more horror stories from the Oregonian and elsewhere about the abuse and neglect of our most vulnerable citizens. It’s that simple.

Stereotypes, Labels, and Assumptions

You hear folks making broad, sweeping statements about people with autism all the time. It drives me nuts! There seems to be very little energy put into discovering autistic people's individuality. I've learned over the years that making assumptions about people with any kind of disability label is harmful to both them and the community they live in.

Where autism is concerned it's actually doubly negative. The reason I write this is that autism has been on the rise for some time now, so it's important that these dangerous assumptions not be thrown around carelessly. As more autistic people come into our communities we are going to have to understand that although there may be some commonalities among them, there are even more individualized traits.

I found this story from the Lodi News-Sentinel out of California today. I'm going to step out on a limb here by going on record as saying what is happening in this young MAN's life has a team of people messing him up. From his well intentioned parents who treat him like a little kid, to his support people that seemingly go along with his parents, to the newspaper making these ridiculous assumptions about all people with autism.

New Mental Health Facility in Wa. County?

From the Department of Human Services comes the following. The reason I'm posting this is in case people in our state want an opportunity to weigh in on the proposal. I'm not talking about the NIMBY (not in my back yard) crowd, but those who care about folks with mental health issues. I know there is a big push in the disability community for community based care, and I'm wondering if anyone might want to contact DHS before the 3/31 deadline for an informal hearing.

March 19, 2008
General contact: Patrick O’Neill, 971-673-2298Program contact: Jana Fussell, 971-673-1108

State issues proposed order granting certificate of need for a new psychiatric hospital in unincorporated Washington County

The Oregon Department of Human Services today issued a proposed order to Ascend Health Corporation granting a certificate of need for a 36-bed psychiatric hospital to be located at the site of the former Cedar Hills Hospital at 10300 S.W. Eastridge Street, Portland. The capital expenditure for this project is estimated to be $6,743,935.

Project approval is contingent on conditions that will help ensure access and safety.
The order issued today is a proposed order. Any affected party who takes exception to the proposed order may request the DHS Public Health Division to hold an informal hearing. If no request for a hearing is received by March 31, 2008, the proposed order will automatically become final.

State law charges DHS officials with reviewing proposals for new hospitals and nursing facilities to make sure health-care consumers don’t pay for the cost of unnecessary facilities.

The Vets Know

If you are in the Portland area, and have access to cable, you should stop what you're doing and turn on channel 23 right now. They are airing the "Winter Soldier" Hearings. It's live testimony about what has happened in Afghanistan and Iraq from veterans who have been there and their families. If you posess human emotion, I challenge you to watch this without shedding a tear.

Also... make sure that you show up downtown tomorrow if you believe these wars are wrong.

Are You Sleeping?!?

I was going to copy a story of the torture and murder of a woman in Alton, Illinois who had a developmental disability. The details are horrid and disgusting. It’s the kind of stuff that makes one feel nauseous. It makes one want to do something. Then I got to thinking.

I’ve written about similar stories on this blog before. In fact, as recently as March 7th, I put a story out there of medical neglect of an Oregonian with mental health issues who eventually committed suicide. And guess what? No comment.

Are people so numb that stories like these are unimportant to them? Are the people who tell you “nobody really cares” correct? It simply amazes me.

Buh Bye Check into Cash

I found this in a blog called Payday Pundit. They claim that the legislature putting the squeeze on companies like this is bad for the working poor in Oregon. I have my doubts, but I'm certainly no financial whiz.

Check into Cash Closes Doors in Oregon
Posted on March 11, 2008 by paydaypundit

Check into Cash, a CFSA member company and one of the nation’s largest payday advance companies, has announced that they have closed their remaining 13 stores in Oregon. Their action comes one year after the Oregon legislature passed a law imposing a 36% APR cap on payday loans.

Allan Jones, Check into Cash CEO, explained that many stores closed when the legislature passed the 36% APR cap. No longer able to offer payday loans, they tried to meet customer needs by offering check cashing services and a new loan product. “These new products were not popular with consumers, nor profitable for the company,” said Jones.
Also from the release:

“With the closing of our remaining stores, Oregon citizens will no longer have access to short-term credit and will be forced into costly products such as overdraft protection and bounced check fees.”

“We tried to work within the constraints of the law, but lost money each and every month we tried to operate there under the new rules. We have proven that it cannot be done.”

“We are saddened that we have been forced to close our stores, putting our employees out of work and leaving our customers without a service they appreciated.”

“As we warned the legislators in Oregon, payday lending cannot be offered under a 36% rate cap. An annual percentage rate of 36% applied to a two-week loan amounts to less than a dime a day on a $100 two-week loan. That cut us from $15 to $1.38 for the two-week transaction. The legislators seem fixed on the APR of 391% as being bad, when in reality, it amounted to $15.”

Mr. Jones said it best when he stated, “The legislators will now have to answer to the tens of thousands of consumers whose credit choices are now limited because this type of micro-lending has been abolished, forcing consumers to more expensive options where no APR disclosure is required, such as overdrafts.”

1,000 Hits

When I checked out my blog this morning I noticed I'd reached a milestone. Sometime in the last 24 hours I scored my 1,000th hit! Actually since then it's gone up to 1,001, but who's counting. It sure would be nice to have 1,000 comments to go along with those hits, but I know the nature of my blog is controversial, so most folks don't have the hutzpah to have their name associated with my writings.

1,000 hits... more than A-Rod in his first 5 years in the Major Leagues. More than the swats my abusive dad laid on the whole family combined. More than every scene in all the Cheech and Chong movies. And more than than the Beatles and Stones put together.

Abuse is Everybody's Business

The sign says:
Look
Listen
Report
Every year, hundreds of Oregonians with developmental disabilities are abused and neglected
you are the eyes and ears of your community
If you even suspect that a person with developmental disabilities is being
abused o r neglected
call toll free 1-8 6 6-4 0 6-4 2 8 7

We are aware that the Oregon Council on Developmental Disabilities has a plan to send this poster to every group home and foster home in the state of Oregon as part of their campaign to encourage citizen reporting of suspected abuse and neglect.

Since we have a grown kid living in a foster home, we are taking this plan hatched by OCDD very personally.

We know that a small group of insiders funded with our federal advocacy dollars crafted this sign. There was no community conversation, no discussion as to whether or not this sign is well designed and effective, and no discussion as to whether or not such a sign hanging in group homes and foster homes is even a good idea.

Some of the points we’ve been considering include:

1.) It’s preaching to the choir: every person hired to work in these homes is already mandated to receive the necessary yearly training regarding reporting abuse (Mandatory Abuse Reporters). If the goal is to increase broader community involvement as reporters, then any information campaign should be focused outside these settings, for example, doctor’s offices, libraries, community centers, banks, schools, post offices, theaters, grocery stores, sports arenas, government offices and workplaces, etc. These are the places where untrained people can be found and encouraged to participate in reporting abuse and neglect of people with disabilities.

2.) Most of the problem is not the lack of reporting by caregivers in group homes. This focus puts the entire responsibility on the on-the-ground caregivers who are already doing their job as mandatory reporters. The real problem has been the lack of information about the outcomes of those reports from these caregivers, and the lack of prosecutions of criminal behavior. It’s not clear why the focus is on increasing reporting to protective services within these residences without the requisite changes to the systems that respond to these reports.

3.) We are told over and over again that these homes are not institutions. You can’t call someone’s residence a “homelike setting” when there are signs like this posted. How many of you have a sign posted in your home? How many of you have been “asked” by a government agency to post a sign in your home? We also believe that the people who actually live in these group and foster homes aren’t being asked at all whether they even want this sign posted in their homes. Where’s the choice and “self-direction” there?

4.) Posting a sign like this has the effect of increasing the institutional culture of these residences, which has been proven to put people at an even higher risk of abuse and neglect.

5.) Addressing this issue in private and only within the homes of people with disabilities communicates to them that this is their problem alone and that they are responsible for solving it themselves.

6.) Limiting the posting to only these settings further confirms in the abuser’s mind that this is an isolated system where abuse is easier to perpetrate. Abusers who target people with disabilities are not naive to the realities of a social services system that is underfunded to adequately respond to these reports. If there is any phone number that belongs on a sign, it is 9-1-1. Perpetrators need to know that what they are considering is a crime that will be reported to law enforcement. People with developmental disabilities need to know that, too, so that they can make an informed choice to exercise all their options when they are victims of crime.

We are requesting input, ideas and comments from readers in the community.

We are asking for a community conversation.
We are requesting input as to whether or not this sign is well designed and effective.
We are requesting a discussion as to whether or not such a sign is even a good idea.

Please give us your best thoughts. Thank you.

David and Suzanne McDonald
DAWG Oregon

Cindy's Story

The following story was found in the Bend Bulletin. It clearly shows how a life was lost due to suspicious circumstances. It clearly shows a system badly in need of an overhaul. It clearly shows the incompetence of those paid to protect and keep safe some of the most vulnerable people in our state. This story breaks my heart.

‘Please help me’

Cindy Powell had struggled with mental illness since she was 14. On Monday, she jumped to her death from a hospital balcony as she was being taken to a locked treatment facility. Here is her story.

Three days before jumping to her death from a balcony in St. Charles Bend’s main lobby, Cindy Powell drove to the hospital’s emergency room with multiple cuts on her arms from a kitchen knife.She was stitched up and sent home with ibuprofen, printed information about depression and bipolar disorder, and instructions to have the sutures removed in 10 days.

Powell, 51, who lived alone in a studio apartment in Redmond, had called the Deschutes County Mental Health Crisis Line twice that day. She later told an ER nurse that “it wasn’t much help, and they told her to come in Monday.” She was released from the hospital at 11:49 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22 — two hours after her arrival — with instructions to call the crisis line if she needed help.
Dr. Robin Henderson, the director of Behavioral Services at Cascade Community Healthcare, the parent company of St. Charles, said hospital workers made the right decision. At the same time, Henderson said, they basically had no choice under Oregon law.

The diagnosis: Borderline personality disorder

Borderline personality disorder is a severe mental illness characterized by unstable moods and bouts of anger, depression and anxiety. It occurs most often in young women. Patients often injure themselves but have no intent of committing suicide. They may have episodes of impulsive aggression, self-injury and drug or alcohol abuse. Feelings of isolation and lack of social support may result in frantic efforts to avoid being alone.

The pills: What she was taking

“She said, ‘I wasn’t trying to kill myself’ — she actually said that,” Henderson said. “At that point, we’re not seeing intent, and this particular injury was not holdable. If we do, then we’ve got a civil rights violation on our hands.” In Oregon, two physicians must find people are a danger to themselves or others before they can be put on a five-day psychiatric hold against their will. Because Powell said she didn’t want to kill herself and told a nurse that she never had a desire to hurt anyone else, St. Charles’ staff couldn’t keep her, Henderson said. “(Patient) extremely negative regarding her prognosis for mental health help,” wrote the nurse who processed her discharge.

It was a weekend, so the Deschutes County Mental Health Department, which had been treating Powell since late October, couldn’t see her. “And there is no respite care here, because there isn’t any funding,” Henderson said. “It’s a horrible situation.” Respite care is temporary, short-term care for patients with special mental health or social service needs, according to the Oregon Department of Human Services. Because it doesn’t exist in Central Oregon, hospital staff were left with two choices for Powell that Friday: Lock her up, or let her go.

What happened next

Powell told a nurse Friday night that she had flown into a rage and cut herself to diffuse the situation, according to medical records. That behavior is consistent with her diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, Henderson said, and is a common symptom of the illness. “The reality is that people who are lethally attempting to kill themselves do not drive themselves to the (emergency room),” she said. “It would have been contraindicated and harmful for her to be repeatedly hospitalized.”

There aren’t any records of a phone call from Powell to the mental health crisis line on Saturday. But at 5:41 p.m., she was found in St. Charles Bend’s ER waiting room, unresponsive and with shallow breathing.

After Powell’s death, two of her sisters would find more than a dozen pill bottles in a bathtub in her tiny apartment. Powell had been diagnosed with a long-standing addiction to prescription pain medications, and doctors who cared for her believe she had overdosed on a sedative. Powell stayed at the hospital overnight, and progress notes show she was fully awake by the next afternoon. She said she was hopeless and wanted to kill herself. “I have nothing,” a nurse quotes her as saying. “I don’t want anything other than to be let to die.”

In the evening, she talked to a nurse’s assistant about her life. The nurse’s notes say Powell had “a family history of alcoholic parents, (molested as a child), father who beat her, inability to live on her current income, she is often cold, hungry and wearing dirty clothes, has a distrust that anyone can help her, was seeing a counselor that committed suicide.”

Powell also had a long history of anorexia nervosa, or starving herself, and told nurses that “eating in the hospital will get her used to food, and then she will not be able to live without it once she goes home.” She continued to talk about killing herself, or getting someone else to do it, Sunday night and Monday, according to hospital records.

The move

Doctors decided to move Powell to St. Charles’ acute mental health care facility, Sage View, on Monday. Powell spent the day telling hospital staff that she did not want to go there. Progress notes show she refused to promise that she wouldn’t hurt herself if she was transferred. Her doctor wrote that Powell “has us over a barrel.” “She, I think, really is very manipulative wanting only to be taken care of, but refusing any direct care claiming that she wants to kill herself,” Dr. William Campbell wrote. “I think we are faced with having to evaluate whether to commit her or not and with that moving her to Sage View.”

That evening, after a half-hour meeting with a clinical social worker, Powell changed her mind and agreed to “contract for safety,” promising she wouldn’t hurt herself on the way to Sage View.

At 8 p.m., a clinical social worker and a member of Sage View’s staff picked up Powell from her room and took her downstairs to get her purse, which was still in the admitting area. Contrary to normal protocols, they walked her through the hospital’s main lobby. She was not restrained because she was not violent, and the organization that certifies the hospital does not allow it, Henderson said. Bend psychologist Mike Conner said he could not comment on Powell’s case but did note that the chances for a person diagnosed with borderline personality disorder to commit suicide are low. Conner did not treat Powell. But he said that, in seven years of arranging transports in Portland for borderline personality disorder patients with recent suicide attempts, he never allowed a transport without some restraint. “What’s the problem with putting them on a comfy little gurney with a belt?” he said.

Henderson said that the hospital is reviewing its transfer policies. They have started putting every transfer patient in a wheelchair and will no longer take them through the lobby, she said.
Powell’s escorts had been specifically trained not to grab for or go after patients who run from staff, Henderson said. “Grabbing them is a dangerous thing to do,” she said. “We train to call for assistance.” So when she bolted from them in the lobby at about 8:10 p.m., the two called for Powell but didn’t chase her. She ran up a staircase to a balcony that leads to the hospital’s cafeteria, paused for a moment and then jumped over the railing. The 25-foot fall caused massive head trauma, neck and back fractures, and broken ribs, hospital records show.

Medics were with her almost immediately, performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and CPR. She initially breathed on her own and moved a finger and her legs. Six minutes later, Powell was in the ER, blood leaking out of her left ear. She was put on life support, and doctors wrote that brain death was imminent. Her sisters, Bonda Powell, of Bend, and Jackie Feik, of Port Orchard, Wash., told hospital staff to honor Cindy Powell’s wishes to be an organ donor.

How she got there

Powell’s sisters both confirmed her reports that she’d been abused as a child. They grew up in violence with alcoholic parents. The family moved often, running from bill collectors, Feik said. The children regularly ran away and were placed in homes away from their parents at times. “She was real angry from a very young age,” Feik said about Cindy Powell.

Their father died in 1991, and Cindy Powell and her mother ended up in Redmond, where they became close, Bonda Powell said. Their mother cared for Cindy until she died in 2003. Then, Cindy turned to Bonda for help. “Bonda said, ‘She is a mess, she needs institutionalization,’” Feik said.

Cindy Powell met a man online and moved to Utah to be with him in 2004, the sisters said. During the relationship, she continued her suicide attempts, once on the wedding day of her boyfriend’s daughter. The two broke up, Feik said, and Cindy Powell moved back to Central Oregon in 2007.

On Oct. 30, just one day after she moved back from Utah, Powell turned up at Deschutes County Mental Health, complaining of anxiety problems and saying she’d come in because she was “trying to save my life.” Staff notes described Powell, then 50, as “older than her stated age, pale and thin.” The report shows that Powell was homeless at the time. She was given information about a Family Resource Center Web site and told to return after she became insured under the Oregon Health Plan.

Powell’s contact with Deschutes Mental Health dropped off for a full month. On Dec. 1, Bonda Powell called the Redmond Police Department to say her sister planned to “starve herself to death.” That day, police found Powell in her apartment, with a butcher knife, bleeding from several cuts to her head and appearing to be suffering the effects of a drug overdose. She had written “I tried” in blood on the wall above her bed, according to her sisters.

In and out of the hospital

Powell was taken to St. Charles Redmond, where doctors recommended transferring her to Bend. On Dec. 3, a clinician noted that Powell “states that she cut herself so she could be a martyr for those people who do not have access to medical care.”

Powell was moved to Sage View, where she met regularly with counselors. Three days later, Powell appeared to be feeling better. She told one staff member that the hospital stay had been “a turning point” and that she was excited about making friends in the facility. She was discharged shortly after.

For the rest of December, Powell went regularly to Deschutes County Mental Health for individual and group therapy sessions. She told counselors about her difficult childhood and detailed her dozens of earlier suicide attempts and about 10 hospitalizations. Records show that Powell reported eating only once a day. But by mid-December, she reported wanting to get herself “stabilized physically and mentally.”

January brought a turn for the worse, when Powell told counselors she was highly anxious, concerned about losing her Redmond apartment and ending up on the street. Doctors prescribed new medications, but it is unclear which ones she actually took; a record dated Feb. 20 notes that Powell had gone to the pharmacy but was unable to afford an $8 co-pay.

Two days later, Powell called the crisis line twice. During the first call at 5:48 p.m., notes say Powell said she’d called because she was experiencing severe mood swings and bouts of rage, and that while she was not thinking of harming herself, she wished that someone would harm her, according to Deschutes County Mental Health records. She was on the line for more than 40 minutes. By 8:05 p.m., when she called for a second time, Powell had cut her arm to “relieve some things” but did not intend to kill herself, the records show. After seven minutes of conversation, Powell said she planned to drive herself to the hospital and hung up the phone.
Seven hours later, at 2 a.m., Powell called the crisis line again and told the staff member on duty that she’d been to the hospital but said it was a “waste of time.” She agreed to call again on Monday to talk about a treatment plan. But Monday came too late.

“We can all get caught up in the minutiae, but the mental health system failed this woman and continued to fail her,” Henderson said.

Left behind

Powell’s sisters spent much of last week together, gathering up Cindy’s unpaid bills and donating her meager belongings to a thrift store. They pored over detailed notes showing a desperate woman living a pained life. Powell wrote about her quest for help and inability to live on the $627 she got monthly from Social Security. Her rent alone was $350.

“She’s got ‘Please help me’ on so many of these papers that we have run across and, I mean, she knew she was sinking,” Feik said. Feik described her sister as “a real note taker” and said it had become a necessity. The medications she took affected her memory, Feik said, so Cindy Powell wrote down nearly everything she needed to remember. Powell wrote about doctor’s appointments and frustration about not getting better.

“It just feels like she can’t be the only one who experienced this,” Feik said, as she sat on a love seat in her dead sister’s apartment. It was decorated with a feminine pink and white bedspread, and a light coverlet over her small couch.

And before her sisters had even packed one box, Bonda Powell talked about the only thing her sister really wanted. “A couple of weeks ago, she said, ‘Bonda, all I want is to be happy, that’s what I ask God for every night.”

Cindy Powers can be reached at 617-7812 or cpowers@bendbulletin.com. Erin Golden can be reached at 408-2836 or egolden@bendbulletin.com.

The following story was found in the Bend Bulletin. It clearly shows how a life was lost due to suspicious circumstances. It clearly shows a system badly in need of an overhaul. It clearly shows the incompetence of those paid to protect and keep safe some of the most vulnerable people in our state. This story breaks my heart.

‘Please help me’

Cindy Powell had struggled with mental illness since she was 14. On Monday, she jumped to her death from a hospital balcony as she was being taken to a locked treatment facility. Here is her story.

Three days before jumping to her death from a balcony in St. Charles Bend’s main lobby, Cindy Powell drove to the hospital’s emergency room with multiple cuts on her arms from a kitchen knife.She was stitched up and sent home with ibuprofen, printed information about depression and bipolar disorder, and instructions to have the sutures removed in 10 days.

Powell, 51, who lived alone in a studio apartment in Redmond, had called the Deschutes County Mental Health Crisis Line twice that day. She later told an ER nurse that “it wasn’t much help, and they told her to come in Monday.” She was released from the hospital at 11:49 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22 — two hours after her arrival — with instructions to call the crisis line if she needed help.
Dr. Robin Henderson, the director of Behavioral Services at Cascade Community Healthcare, the parent company of St. Charles, said hospital workers made the right decision. At the same time, Henderson said, they basically had no choice under Oregon law.

The diagnosis: Borderline personality disorder

Borderline personality disorder is a severe mental illness characterized by unstable moods and bouts of anger, depression and anxiety. It occurs most often in young women. Patients often injure themselves but have no intent of committing suicide. They may have episodes of impulsive aggression, self-injury and drug or alcohol abuse. Feelings of isolation and lack of social support may result in frantic efforts to avoid being alone.

The pills: What she was taking
“She said, ‘I wasn’t trying to kill myself’ — she actually said that,” Henderson said. “At that point, we’re not seeing intent, and this particular injury was not holdable. If we do, then we’ve got a civil rights violation on our hands.” In Oregon, two physicians must find people are a danger to themselves or others before they can be put on a five-day psychiatric hold against their will. Because Powell said she didn’t want to kill herself and told a nurse that she never had a desire to hurt anyone else, St. Charles’ staff couldn’t keep her, Henderson said. “(Patient) extremely negative regarding her prognosis for mental health help,” wrote the nurse who processed her discharge.
It was a weekend, so the Deschutes County Mental Health Department, which had been treating Powell since late October, couldn’t see her. “And there is no respite care here, because there isn’t any funding,” Henderson said. “It’s a horrible situation.” Respite care is temporary, short-term care for patients with special mental health or social service needs, according to the Oregon Department of Human Services. Because it doesn’t exist in Central Oregon, hospital staff were left with two choices for Powell that Friday: Lock her up, or let her go.
What happened next
Powell told a nurse Friday night that she had flown into a rage and cut herself to diffuse the situation, according to medical records. That behavior is consistent with her diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, Henderson said, and is a common symptom of the illness. “The reality is that people who are lethally attempting to kill themselves do not drive themselves to the (emergency room),” she said. “It would have been contraindicated and harmful for her to be repeatedly hospitalized.”
There aren’t any records of a phone call from Powell to the mental health crisis line on Saturday. But at 5:41 p.m., she was found in St. Charles Bend’s ER waiting room, unresponsive and with shallow breathing.
After Powell’s death, two of her sisters would find more than a dozen pill bottles in a bathtub in her tiny apartment. Powell had been diagnosed with a long-standing addiction to prescription pain medications, and doctors who cared for her believe she had overdosed on a sedative. Powell stayed at the hospital overnight, and progress notes show she was fully awake by the next afternoon. She said she was hopeless and wanted to kill herself. “I have nothing,” a nurse quotes her as saying. “I don’t want anything other than to be let to die.”
In the evening, she talked to a nurse’s assistant about her life. The nurse’s notes say Powell had “a family history of alcoholic parents, (molested as a child), father who beat her, inability to live on her current income, she is often cold, hungry and wearing dirty clothes, has a distrust that anyone can help her, was seeing a counselor that committed suicide.”
Powell also had a long history of anorexia nervosa, or starving herself, and told nurses that “eating in the hospital will get her used to food, and then she will not be able to live without it once she goes home.” She continued to talk about killing herself, or getting someone else to do it, Sunday night and Monday, according to hospital records.
The move
Doctors decided to move Powell to St. Charles’ acute mental health care facility, Sage View, on Monday. Powell spent the day telling hospital staff that she did not want to go there. Progress notes show she refused to promise that she wouldn’t hurt herself if she was transferred. Her doctor wrote that Powell “has us over a barrel.” “She, I think, really is very manipulative wanting only to be taken care of, but refusing any direct care claiming that she wants to kill herself,” Dr. William Campbell wrote. “I think we are faced with having to evaluate whether to commit her or not and with that moving her to Sage View.”
That evening, after a half-hour meeting with a clinical social worker, Powell changed her mind and agreed to “contract for safety,” promising she wouldn’t hurt herself on the way to Sage View.
At 8 p.m., a clinical social worker and a member of Sage View’s staff picked up Powell from her room and took her downstairs to get her purse, which was still in the admitting area. Contrary to normal protocols, they walked her through the hospital’s main lobby. She was not restrained because she was not violent, and the organization that certifies the hospital does not allow it, Henderson said. Bend psychologist Mike Conner said he could not comment on Powell’s case but did note that the chances for a person diagnosed with borderline personality disorder to commit suicide are low. Conner did not treat Powell. But he said that, in seven years of arranging transports in Portland for borderline personality disorder patients with recent suicide attempts, he never allowed a transport without some restraint. “What’s the problem with putting them on a comfy little gurney with a belt?” he said.
Henderson said that the hospital is reviewing its transfer policies. They have started putting every transfer patient in a wheelchair and will no longer take them through the lobby, she said.
Powell’s escorts had been specifically trained not to grab for or go after patients who run from staff, Henderson said. “Grabbing them is a dangerous thing to do,” she said. “We train to call for assistance.” So when she bolted from them in the lobby at about 8:10 p.m., the two called for Powell but didn’t chase her. She ran up a staircase to a balcony that leads to the hospital’s cafeteria, paused for a moment and then jumped over the railing. The 25-foot fall caused massive head trauma, neck and back fractures, and broken ribs, hospital records show.
Medics were with her almost immediately, performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and CPR. She initially breathed on her own and moved a finger and her legs. Six minutes later, Powell was in the ER, blood leaking out of her left ear. She was put on life support, and doctors wrote that brain death was imminent. Her sisters, Bonda Powell, of Bend, and Jackie Feik, of Port Orchard, Wash., told hospital staff to honor Cindy Powell’s wishes to be an organ donor.
How she got there
Powell’s sisters both confirmed her reports that she’d been abused as a child. They grew up in violence with alcoholic parents. The family moved often, running from bill collectors, Feik said. The children regularly ran away and were placed in homes away from their parents at times. “She was real angry from a very young age,” Feik said about Cindy Powell.
Their father died in 1991, and Cindy Powell and her mother ended up in Redmond, where they became close, Bonda Powell said. Their mother cared for Cindy until she died in 2003. Then, Cindy turned to Bonda for help. “Bonda said, ‘She is a mess, she needs institutionalization,’” Feik said.
Cindy Powell met a man online and moved to Utah to be with him in 2004, the sisters said. During the relationship, she continued her suicide attempts, once on the wedding day of her boyfriend’s daughter. The two broke up, Feik said, and Cindy Powell moved back to Central Oregon in 2007.
On Oct. 30, just one day after she moved back from Utah, Powell turned up at Deschutes County Mental Health, complaining of anxiety problems and saying she’d come in because she was “trying to save my life.” Staff notes described Powell, then 50, as “older than her stated age, pale and thin.” The report shows that Powell was homeless at the time. She was given information about a Family Resource Center Web site and told to return after she became insured under the Oregon Health Plan.
Powell’s contact with Deschutes Mental Health dropped off for a full month. On Dec. 1, Bonda Powell called the Redmond Police Department to say her sister planned to “starve herself to death.” That day, police found Powell in her apartment, with a butcher knife, bleeding from several cuts to her head and appearing to be suffering the effects of a drug overdose. She had written “I tried” in blood on the wall above her bed, according to her sisters.
In and out of the hospital
Powell was taken to St. Charles Redmond, where doctors recommended transferring her to Bend. On Dec. 3, a clinician noted that Powell “states that she cut herself so she could be a martyr for those people who do not have access to medical care.”
Powell was moved to Sage View, where she met regularly with counselors. Three days later, Powell appeared to be feeling better. She told one staff member that the hospital stay had been “a turning point” and that she was excited about making friends in the facility. She was discharged shortly after.
For the rest of December, Powell went regularly to Deschutes County Mental Health for individual and group therapy sessions. She told counselors about her difficult childhood and detailed her dozens of earlier suicide attempts and about 10 hospitalizations. Records show that Powell reported eating only once a day. But by mid-December, she reported wanting to get herself “stabilized physically and mentally.”
January brought a turn for the worse, when Powell told counselors she was highly anxious, concerned about losing her Redmond apartment and ending up on the street. Doctors prescribed new medications, but it is unclear which ones she actually took; a record dated Feb. 20 notes that Powell had gone to the pharmacy but was unable to afford an $8 co-pay.
Two days later, Powell called the crisis line twice. During the first call at 5:48 p.m., notes say Powell said she’d called because she was experiencing severe mood swings and bouts of rage, and that while she was not thinking of harming herself, she wished that someone would harm her, according to Deschutes County Mental Health records. She was on the line for more than 40 minutes. By 8:05 p.m., when she called for a second time, Powell had cut her arm to “relieve some things” but did not intend to kill herself, the records show. After seven minutes of conversation, Powell said she planned to drive herself to the hospital and hung up the phone.
Seven hours later, at 2 a.m., Powell called the crisis line again and told the staff member on duty that she’d been to the hospital but said it was a “waste of time.” She agreed to call again on Monday to talk about a treatment plan.
But Monday came too late.
“We can all get caught up in the minutiae, but the mental health system failed this woman and continued to fail her,” Henderson said.
Left behind
Powell’s sisters spent much of last week together, gathering up Cindy’s unpaid bills and donating her meager belongings to a thrift store. They pored over detailed notes showing a desperate woman living a pained life. Powell wrote about her quest for help and inability to live on the $627 she got monthly from Social Security. Her rent alone was $350.
“She’s got ‘Please help me’ on so many of these papers that we have run across and, I mean, she knew she was sinking,” Feik said. Feik described her sister as “a real note taker” and said it had become a necessity. The medications she took affected her memory, Feik said, so Cindy Powell wrote down nearly everything she needed to remember. Powell wrote about doctor’s appointments and frustration about not getting better.
“It just feels like she can’t be the only one who experienced this,” Feik said, as she sat on a love seat in her dead sister’s apartment. It was decorated with a feminine pink and white bedspread, and a light coverlet over her small couch.
And before her sisters had even packed one box, Bonda Powell talked about the only thing her sister really wanted. “A couple of weeks ago, she said, ‘Bonda, all I want is to be happy, that’s what I ask God for every night.”
Cindy Powers can be reached at 617-7812 or cpowers@bendbulletin.com. Erin Golden can be reached at 408-2836 or egolden@bendbulletin.com.

Is Ohio More Socially Conscious Than Oregon?

I still believe in the basic goodness of the people in our state. I believe they truly care about all our citizens. There is always going to be controversy around certain issues that have political ramifications that we need to inspect and wrestle with as a community, but ensuring that the basic needs of our people are met is not one. I came across the following article on the internet and it caused me to think of how we are not asked to do what needs to be done to ensure our people’s needs are taken care of in Oregon. I believe that if we were, we would.
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Franklin County MRDD levy wins in landslide

Tuesday, March 4, 2008
By BONNIE BUTCHERThisWeek Staff Writer

Franklin County voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed Issue 29, a levy for the Franklin County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities.
With 90 percent of precincts reporting, the levy was winning handily with 165,968 votes (68.71 percent) to 75,595 votes (31.29 percent), according to unofficial results from the board of elections.
"We're very happy for the children and adults that we serve and their families and for all those staff and providers who support the children and adults of our community," said Jed Morison, MRDD board superintendent. "We've had absolutely great support from so many."
The permanent 3.5-mill levy will replace a 1.65-mill levy, Morison said. It will begin collecting in January 2009. A levy for 2.32 mills that voters approved in 1998 expires at the end of this year.
"The owner of a $100,000 house will contribute an additional $47.31 per year," according to campaign literature. "Even though the new voted millage will be less than the previous levies, the updated effective rate will provide some additional funds."
Those additional funds will not be used to create new programs, Morison said, but to serve the growing population of people who qualify for services. That population is growing as medical technology increases the life spans of people with disabilities, Morison said.
The board serves approximately 14,000 people with developmental disabilities from infancy to adulthood.
"Developmental disability originates in the developmental or childhood years and is expected to last indefinitely," Morison said, "so we have adults who've had disabilities since childhood who still benefit from our services."
Children are served through such programs as early intervention and preschool programs and school-age services for children with multiple disabilities, Morison said.
"Doctors say the greatest amount of brain development is in the first three years of life," Morison said, "so to provide that early intervention and support is very important."
Adult clients participate in training to gain employment, Morison said, or for people who aren't ready for employment, the board provides them with skills to help with their daily living.
Morison said the goal is to help give people the skills to be as independent as possible.
Morison said he is grateful to the Franklin County community.
"This is a wonderful community," Morison said. "Some say the character of a community is best determined by how people in need are supported. This is one more example of why our community is a great place to live."

The Democratic Nominee

2 lawyers.

1 corporate lawyer.

1 civil rights lawyer.

You choose...

Reporting Live!

I'm listening to the "Black State of the Union 2008" on C-SPAN this morning. There's a panel of black leaders talking about the current state of affairs in the U.S. as it pertains to the black community. This is the 9th year this has been aired on C-SPAN with host/moderator Tavis Smiley.

I've been very taken with what some of these folks have been saying. My man Jesse Jackson blew the roof off the place with his take on "freedom"vs. "equality". He believes (and I agree) that freedom is simply a means for acheiving equality. Freedom is fairly useless if looked upon as a goal itself. There has also been a lot of discussion generated through the words of W. E. B. DuBois, and what he had to say about this country in the 20th century.

The event is taking place in New Orleans, which seems to be a great choice of location. Mayor Ray Nagin, who is also on the panel also had some solid insight into what has happened (or not) in that city following Katrina. His determination that the Lower 9th Ward will be thoroughly rebuilt is very inspirational to me. He's also committed to reforming the incarceration and disproportionate population of blacks in the prison system, which I believe is long overdue.

This is a great way to enjoy Saturday. You oughta join me!

And Here in Oregon

From Willamette Week...

In a civil-rights lawsuit filed Tuesday at U.S. District Court in Portland, former inmate Travis Putnam claims he suffered festering bedsores that went ignored for nearly a year by prison doctors.

A Wasco County judge sentenced Putnam, 34, to 18 months in prison on Jan. 10, 2006, after Putnam pleaded guilty to one count of possession of methamphetamine and one count of felon in possession of a firearm.

According to the lawsuit, Putnam is quadriplegic, with no use of his legs and minimal use of his hands and arms. The lawsuit says he developed large open sores on his buttocks and the backs of his heels from prolonged time spent in his wheelchair while he was incarcerated at the Snake River Correctional Facility in Ontario from March 2006 to February 2007.

Putnam sought help from Dr. Garth Gulick, a prison physician at Snake River. But according to the lawsuit, Gulick showed "deliberate indifference to plaintiff's serious medical condition."
When Putnam was transferred on Feb. 10, 2007, to the Oregon State Prison in Salem, the lawsuit says he was "delirious and in extreme pain as a result of the open sores on his backside and heels." But the lawsuit says Dr. John Vargo, a prison physician at OSP, again refused to treat him.

Putnam was released on Feb. 16, 2007. According to the lawsuit he was immediately admitted to a hospital, where he underwent surgery for the bedsores, which had grown up to five centimeters in diameter. Afterward he underwent seven months of treatment and rehabilitation, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit, filed by Portland lawyer Donald Dartt, names Gulick and Vargo as defendants. It seeks $75,500 for medical expenses plus other damages to be determined at trial.

Chane Griggs, spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Corrections, declined to comment.

Legislative Snobbery?

I thought the way it's supposed to work is that when "we the people" have valid concerns about things happening in our state, were supposed to contact our legislature who address them. That has not been my experience here in Oregon. Sure; I've contacted them, but far too often they've ignored both me and my concerns.

In the past 4+ years I've made several efforts to interact with our elected officials in an attempt to bring about system reform around people with developmental disabilities. As someone who has been involved with this population for over 24 years through family and professionally, I figured they would want to hear my thoughts. Apparently that's not the case. They only want to hear from insiders, who are mostly paid with state dollars. This is far from what my understanding of the definition of "democracy" is.

I have gone through my computer and tallied these attempts and the results with our legislature. The left hand column lists the names of those I've contacted. Beside that is the number of times I have contacted them. On the right is the number of times they've gotten back to me.

Representative Gary Hanson 9----------3
Representative Steve March 6---------0
Representative Billy Dalto 10---------2
Representative Carolyn Tomei 3---------0
Representative Jean Cowan 3---------0
Representative Tina Kotek 11---------2
Representative Bob Jenson 3---------0
Representative Vic Gilliam 3---------0
Representative Ron Maurer 3---------0
Representative Andy Olson 3---------0
Representative Mary Nolan 3---------0
Representative Sarah Gelser 10---------2
Senator Margaret Carter 13---------0
Senator Kate Brown 7----------0
Senator Kurt Schrader 11---------0
Senator David Nelsen 3---------0
Senator Avel Gordly 10---------1
__________
Totals 110---------10

I don't know what you think, but I think this is really bad.

Let's Go

I have nothing to lose. The threats of this country such as law suits and jail time don’t scare me one bit. In my mind, right is right, and wrong is wrong. I’m going to tell it like it is, and let the chips fall where they may. Suzanne is asleep in our bed and knows nothing of my actions. She has nothing to do with this writing.

Linda Lund was my supervisor at SCVP, the day program that Tracey attended. Her good friend, Amanda Snell-Garcia was her choice as Tracey’s Healthcare Representative. Vicki Danielson was Tracey’s County Case Manager. Bill Toomey was Vicki’s supervisor. Rosalinda Asai was Tracey’s Foster Care Provider. And I was Tracey’s friend.

I believe that this group of people, beside me; failed to get her treatment, and led to her dying of cancer without weighing Tracey’s options. I also believe that the state of Oregon and Oregon Advocacy Center were complicate in allowing this to happen. I further believe that Michael T. Bailey, Jan Campbell, and Michael Levine and Bob Joondeph of OAC, were party to the cover up of the facts shared with them regarding the medical neglect which led to Tracey’s death. Now that these people are named and accused, I want them to prove me wrong. I can prove me right. Let's go.