JFActivist

Activists Rally for Change in Wake of Abuse and Murder of Dorothy Dixon

From The Telegraph (May 31):

March rallies support for disabled
By STEPHANIE KISZCZAK

ALTON - They caused quite a scene marching down East Broadway early Saturday afternoon.

Some were on foot, in wheelchairs, in vehicles or on motorcycles, with police cars at the front and back of the line. They proudly displayed signs and chanted as they journeyed up the hills of Sering Avenue.

"What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!" they yelled.

People along the way stood at their front doors to watch the commotion, while others peeked out of windows. Motorists honked in support and others pulled off to the side of the road to watch.

The group of nearly 30 people had gathered to honor 29-year-old Dorothy Latrice Dixon, who died from her injuries after being shot with a pellet gun, beaten and scalded over several weeks' time. She died in January. Dixon, who had moved to Alton from Quincy, Ill., was six months pregnant and developmentally disabled...

...Read more.

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• Read F.R.I.D.A.'s blog posting about their trip to Alton for the Dorothy Dixon Memorial
• More on F.R.I.D.A. (Feminist Response in Disability Activism)
  

Disability Advocates Plan Memorial for Victim of Torture, Killing

For Immediate Release:

For Information Contact:
May 28, 2007 Sharon Lamp (847) 803-3258;
(847) 894-4907 cell
Amber Smock Ambity@aol.com

End Violence Against People with Disabilities Now!
Disability Rights Activists to Gather in Alton, Illinois

(Chicago) On Saturday, May 31, disability rights advocates from Illinois and the St. Louis, Missouri, area will gather in Alton for a community memorial in the name of Dorothy Dixon, a 29-year-old woman
with a developmental disability who was found dead due to domestic violence at the end of January. The memorial, organized by Feminist Response in Disability Activism (FRIDA), will be hosted at 11 am CST
at IMPACT Center for Independent Living at 2735 E. Broadway in Alton. The service will end with a procession to the house where Ms. Dixon died.

The story of Ms. Dixon's slow death over two months, allegedly at the hands of her housemates, shocked the disability community. Alton police found over 20 objects allegedly used to torture her, and at her death she was found cold and half naked, wearing only a sweater. She was six months pregnant at the time. Police believe the motive for her death may have been domestic conflict concerning her monthly
SSI disability check. At least one of her six alleged abusers also has a developmental disability; four are age 18 or younger. Ms. Dixon's surviving child weighed 15 pounds at the time, aged one.

People with disabilities, especially those with developmental disabilities, are historically more likely to become victims of physical violence, as well as emotional and financial abuse. Women and people who are LGBTQ are also more likely to become victims of violence. FRIDA and our allies are determined not to let this incident pass without bringing attention to the broader issues of violence damaging our community.

While Centers for Independent Living and grassroots groups like our ally, ADAPT, advocate for home and community-based supports so people with disabilities can live in the community, we need those supports to be safe supports. Our community needs better tools to protect ourselves from violence. "No one knows what it's like to go through that unless it's being done to you," says Veronica Martinez of
FRIDA. "If someone was planning to do that to me, I would like to be prepared."

Feminist Response in Disability Activism
115 W. Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL 60610
Contact: Monica Heffner, (312) 404-6021
www.ourfrida.org

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READ MORE:

Trackback to previous articles about the Dorothy Dixon torture and killing (article 1), (article 2)

Report: Serious Deficiencies in Nursing Homes Often Missed

From The New York Times (May 15):

Serious Deficiencies in Nursing Homes Are Often Missed, Report Says
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON — Nursing home inspectors routinely overlook or minimize problems that pose a serious, immediate threat to patients, Congressional investigators say in a new report.

In the report, to be issued on Thursday, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, say they have found widespread “understatement of deficiencies,” including malnutrition, severe bedsores, overuse of prescription medications and abuse of nursing home residents...

...Read more (free registration may be required)

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Read the GAO report:

Nursing Homes:  Federal Monitoring Surveys Demonstrate Continued Understatement of Serious Care Problems and CMS Oversight Weaknesses.  GAO-08-517, May 9.

• Full report
• Highlights

Computer Hackers Maliciously Attack Epilepsy Website

From Fox News / Associated Press (May 7):

Computer Hackers Attack Epilepsy Foundation Web Site With Barrage of Pictures, Flashing Images

SAN FRANCISCO —
Computer attacks typically don't inflict physical pain on their victims.

But in a rare example of an attack apparently motivated by malice rather than money, hackers recently bombarded the Epilepsy Foundation's Web site with hundreds of pictures and links to pages with rapidly flashing images.

The breach triggered severe migraines and near-seizure reactions in some site visitors who viewed the images. People with photosensitive epilepsy can get seizures when they're exposed to flickering images, a response also caused by some video games and cartoons...

...Read more.

Texas Mental Health Hospitals Show Systemic Abuse

From The Dallas Morning News (May 3):

Reports show systemic abuse at Texas' psychiatric hospitals

By EMILY RAMSHAW

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...

...Read more.

800 Texas Employees Fired or Suspended for Abuse

From the Houston Chronicle:

Hundreds of employees mistreated Texas patients
By JEFF CARLTON Associated Press Writer

DALLAS — More than 800 employees at Texas' 13 large facilities for the mentally and developmentally disabled have been suspended or fired for abusing patients since fiscal year 2004, state officials said Tuesday.

In response to an open records request from The Associated Press, the Department of Aging and Disability Services said that 239 employees were fired or suspended in fiscal year 2007 for the abuse, neglect or exploitation of residents...

...Read more.

Report Shows Children with Disabilities More Likely to be Victims of Maltreatment

A report from the Administration on Children and Families within the US Department of Health and Human Services, called "Child Maltreatment 2006," is now available online. This annual publication has the national and state findings on referrals for child maltreatment, substantiated cases, and types of abuse and neglect. Information on perpetrators of maltreatment, child protective services (CPS) workload, and preventive and post-investigation services is also included.

Highlights include the following:

• Children who were reported with any of the following risk factors were considered as having a disability: mental retardation, emotional disturbance, visual or hearing impairment, learning disability, physical disability, behavioral problems, or another medical problem. In general, children with such risk factors are undercounted, as not every child receives a clinical diagnostic assessment from CPS agency staff.
• Nearly 8 percent (7.7%) of victims had a reported disability. Three percent of victims had behavior problems and 1.9 percent of victims were emotionally disturbed. A victim could have been reported with more than one type of disability.
• Children who were reported as disabled were 54 percent more likely to be considered a victim of maltreatment than children who were not reported as disabled.
• Child victims who were reported with a disability were 52 percent more likely to experience recurrence than children without a disability.

For more information, contact:
Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD)

Nursing Homes Report Using Less Physical Restraints

From the Associated Press:

Nursing Homes Cut Back on Restraints

By KEVIN FREKING

WASHINGTON -- The use of physical restraints on nursing home patients declined nearly 40 percent nationally in recent years as the federal government, states and the nursing home industry placed greater emphasis on eliminating what once was a common practice.

Overall, about 5.9 percent of 1.5 million long-term patients were physically restrained repeatedly in 2006. That's a drop from 9.7 percent in 2002...

...Read more.

Pregnant Woman with Developmental Disabilities Abused, Murdered

Excerpts from Pantagraph.com (Bloomington, Illinois):

Teens charged in murder of mentally disabled pregnant woman

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

By Shane Graber

ALTON -- A small white A-frame house on Hillcrest Avenue here housed for weeks a torturous environment of beatings, scaldings, even BB gun shootings that eventually led to the death of a mentally disabled pregnant woman, officials, neighbors and family members said...

...

Riley had been taking Dixon’s monthly Social Security check that she presumably received as a result of developmental disabilities, Hayes said...

...

Terri Brandt, 27, said her next-door neighbors were always making a racket. She said she witnessed Riley punish Dixon by making her run naked, and that Riley would pour boiling water and use a hot glue gun on Dixon. Riley had baby monitors in all the rooms to keep tabs on everyone, Brandt said...

...Read the entire article.

The Worst Nursing Facilities - Come on CMS

From Steve Gold:

The Worst Nursing Facilities
Come On CMS - Information Bulletin #242 (3/08)

CMS issued a report on 2/13/08 identifying the 131 worst nursing facilities in the country. To make this honor role:

(1) these facilities had at least twice as many deficiencies as the average number of average deficiencies than other nursing facilities in the quality of care they provided; (2) they had more serious problems than other nursing homes ("serious problems"are those, by definition, that actually cause harm or injury to residents), AND (3) they had a pattern of these "serious problems" that persisted over approximately three years.

One would think that such nursing institutions would have been shut down well before three years! Or at least, CMS would have disallowed federal Medicaid and Medicare funds to continue to flow to them. Can one imagine how afraid older Americans and other residents with disabilities must be in these institutions? They see and know these "serious problems" pervade the nursing facility where they are, and they must live in constant fear that they will be the next "serious problem" even though many want to return to the community with appropriate services.

Can anyone imagine the CMS officials or our esteemed federally elected officials letting their mothers or brothers or children stay in these institutions for any length of time, let alone three years?

One might think that our federal Medicare and Medicaid dollars would have been stopped as soon as a nursing facility caused one "serious" harm or injury to residents. Without any question, when "serious problems" persist for more than one inspection, the dollars should have been stopped. But they continue.

What will it take to stop spending our federal dollars in nursing institutions that cause "serious" harm and injury to older Americans and people with disabilities? Maybe if CMS officials will not impose serious penalties we should ask them to spend some time in these institutions as "residents." Let them have to live in these nursing institutions and be potential victims of "serious problems." Such an experience might even push them to opt for community-based services as an entitlement.

Maybe CMS should tell us how many residents need to be seriously injured or harmed before a nursing facility loses its Medicaid and Medicare funds. Is there a magic number?

Of the 131, here are the 52 worse nursing facilities that have not improved but still receive Medicaid and Medicare funds. (Some of the 131 "improved" in one inspection but have not sustained improvement for 12 months.)  Let's remember these 52 are only the tip of the worst..

Disability and Older American advocates could check out the mortality/morbidity rates in these nursing facilities.  Do your newspapers know these esteemed nursing facilities have made the CMS "worse" list?

You could even determine what, if anything, your state Health Department (or whatever is the nursing home inspection unit in your State)  has done to monitor or impose sanctions on these dangerous institutions.

Eastview Health Care Center,        Birmingham, AL
Medi-Home Inc,              Fort Smith AR
Infinia At Show Low,                Show Low, AZ
Evergreen Foothills Health & Rehab,     Phoenix, AZ
Ember Health Care - Pomona,     Pomona, CA
Pleasant Care Rehab & Nursing Center, Santa Cruz, CA
Eagle Ridge at Grand Valley,            Grand Junction, CO
Kindred Healthcare & Rehab,     Northgleen, CP
Apollo Health & Rehab,          St. Petersburg, FL
Key West Conv Center,           Key West, FL
Polk City Nurisng & Rehab,          Polk City, IA
Cedar Falls Health care,             Cedar Falls, IA
International Village,              Chicago, IL
Berkshire Nursing & Rehab Center,       Forest Park, IL
Hillcrest Center for Heath & Rehab,     Jeffersonville, IN
St. Jospeh Care Center - west,       South bend, IN
Valparaiso Care & Rehab center,       Valparaiso, IN
Deseret Nursing & Rehab,             Colby, KS
Highlands Nursing,                Louisville, KY
Cambridge Place,             Lexington, KY
Cedar Hill Health Care,          Randolph, MA
Harborside Healthare,                Wakefield, MA
Fairlane Senior Care,                Detroit, MI
Imperial Healthcare,             Dearborn Heights, MI
Metron of Big Rapids,                Big Rapids, MI
West Village Manor,              Columbia, MO
Senior Estates,                   Kansas City, MO
St. Elizabeth Healthcare,             Florissant, MO
Evergreen Missoula,              Missoula, MT
Infinia Att Florence Heights,            Omaha, NE
Victoria Health Care Center,          Matawan, NJ
Fort Bayard Med Center,          Fort Bayard, NM
Northwoods Rehab ECC Hilltop,        Niskayuna, NY
Geriatric Center of Mansfield,       Mansfield, OH
Woodlawn Health Care,             Pawhuska, OK
Northwest Nursing Center,             Oklahoma City, OK
Hometown Nursing,                Tamqua, PA
Ashton Hall,                 Phila, PA
Brighten at Broomall,                Broomall, PA
Unihealth Post Acute (formerly     Manolia Manor),          Moncks Corner, SC
Bennett Co. Hosp & Nursing,       Martin, SC
Overton Park Health care,             Memphis, TN
Taylor Care,                 Taylor, TX
Renaissance at Kessler Park,          Dallas, TX
Bennner Healthcare,              Houston, TX
San Saba Nursing Home,           San Saba, TX
Ruston Health of Woodbridge,     Woodbridge, VA
Frontier Rehab & Ext Care,           Longview, WA
Franklin Hills Health & Rehab,        Spokane, WA
Willows Nursing and Rehab,           Sun Prairie, WI
Middleton Village Nursing Rehab,     Middleton, WI