International Disability Rights News Service
Click here for today's headlines
Keeping advocates informed, inspired and connected since
1999.
Daily or
Weekly delivery . . .
Purchase this
story for your website or newsletter . . .
Missouri Governor Calls For Closing Abuse-Plagued
Institution
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
January 27,
2005
JEFFERSON CITY, MISSOURI--Governor Matt Blunt made it clear
Wednesday night that it is time for a change at Bellefontaine Habilitation
Center.
That change, outlined in his budget proposal, includes closing the 80-year-old facility and moving the 400 people with developmental disabilities housed there into homes in the community.
Blunt's proposal comes after several dozen reported incidents of abuse and neglect -- and at least one death -- at the institution during the last year.
George Holmes, 33, died on August 4, a few hours after he phoned his stepmother complaining he was being beaten by staff. BHC workers and state officials said he slipped, fell, and had a heart attack. A medical examiner later ruled Holmes died from natural causes, that his heart simply stopped after he became "extremely agitated".
In October, the state Division of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities fired four BHC employees, disciplined four others and suspended an additional 47 more with pay over abuse and neglect allegations.
According to Thursday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Blunt's Commissioner of Administration Michael Keathley said the state would save $19 million by closing BHC and by transferring more people into the community from three of the six other state-operated institutions.
"He also feels that these clients can be better treated through placement in community facilities," Keathley said of the governor.
In spite of the abuse problems at the facility, family members of some residents told the Post-Dispatch that they intend to fight the closure, arguing there are not adequate resources in the community to serve BHC residents.
Keathley said: "Bellefontaine will obviously have to be a transition program. You can't close the doors tomorrow. You will be transitioning that facility over a period of time."
The paper did not mention a time frame for BHC's closure.
Related:
"Blunt proposes closing Bellefontaine center for
disabled" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/05/red/0127a.htm
"Bellefontaine
Habilitation Center" (Inclusion Daily Express Archives)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/institutions/mo/bellefontaine.htm
Click here for top of this page
Purchase this story for your website or newsletter . . .
Here's what subscribers say about Inclusion Daily Express. . .
Inclusion Daily Express
3231 W. Boone Ave., # 711
Spokane, Washington 99201 USA
Phone:
509-326-5811
News@InclusionDaily.com
Copyright © 2005 Inonit Publishing