Advocacy Groups File Suit Against The State Of Texas
Two advocacy groups, the Arc of Texas and the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities, have filed a lawsuit against the state of Texas in U.S. District Court in San Antonio along with six individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The suit focuses on the approximately 4,500 people with disabilities living in nursing homes in Texas. Almost five thousand individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities are forced to live in nursing homes providing inadequate care, according to the advocacy groups responsible for the recent legal action.
Most of those people would receive better care in a community-based facility or their own homes, but the state unfairly restricts access to the programs and services, according to the suit. "Many are denied the opportunity to live where they choose," said Mike Bright, executive director of the Arc of Texas. "In other words, they have been imprisoned simply for having a disability."
Andrea Padron, a 26 year old woman is one of the named plaintiff’s in this suit. She suffered a head injury when she was 10 and then received a diagnosis that included mental retardation and quadriplegia, according to the suit. Before she was placed in a San Antonio nursing home in 2002, Padron could use a wheelchair and participated in activities including aqua therapy. "Andrea was making solid progress when she lived at home," Hudecek said in a statement. "We desperately want to get Andrea out of the facility and into a community-based setting, where she can resume the therapy and activities that had helped her so much."
A 2010 report by the Texas Council for Developmental Disabilities advised public officials thatTexas ranks 49th among 50 states in providing community-based services to people with developmental disabilities.
Susan Garnett, deputy CEO of Mental Health Mental Retardation of Tarrant County, said the vast majority of people receiving services through MHMR do so at home or in a group home. The few who live in nursing homes tend to be those with serious continuing medical needs, she said. "Nursing facilities are one of those services that have to be provided to anyone that has Medicaid and needs that service," Ms. Susan Garnett, deputy CEO of “Mental Health/Mental Retardation in Tarrant County in Texas said.
She also said it's far easier to get someone into a nursing home than into a community-based program.
