Neglected to Death in Florida

via The Miami Herald (5.8.11):

At Homes for the Mentally Ill, a Sweeping Breakdown in Care

The Miami Herald found that special homes for people with mental illness are often shoddily run, with residents left without critical psychiatric and medical help.  

By Carol Marbin Miller, Rob Barry and Michael Sallah

For the residents of Hillandale, punishment was swift and painful: violent takedowns, powerful tranquilizers that made them stumble and drool, and staffers who would scream and tackle them when they misbehaved.

Last April, the staff protested the removal of a 47-year-old man — frail and mentally retarded — who said he wanted to move, while residents shouted and blocked the path of state workers trying to safely escort him from the home.

While most assisted-living facilities (ALFs) are designed to care for the elderly — providing help with everyday tasks — Florida licenses facilities like Hillandale to also care for people with severe mental illness. Created a generation ago, the special homes were the state’s answer to providing housing for thousands left in the streets after the historic closings of Florida’s psychiatric institutions.

But The Miami Herald found dozens of the homes are so poorly run that residents are forced to languish without crucial needs — including medication and psychiatric help — leaving their care to police and rescue workers.

The Herald’s examination of Florida’s 1,083 homes for people with mental illness, including a review of state inspection reports, police investigations, court records and interviews with mental health experts, found:

•  Regulators find nearly twice the rate of abuse and neglect at the special homes, including caretakers beating and sexually molesting residents.

•  State agents have caught nearly 100 homes using illegal restraints since 2002 — including doping residents with tranquilizers without doctor’s approval, tying them with ropes and locking them in isolation rooms — only to catch them doing it again.

•  Florida’s requirements to run a home for people with mental illnesses are among the lowest in the nation: a high school diploma and 26 hours of training — less than the state requirements for barbers, cosmetologists and auctioneers.

•  Caretakers are routinely caught intoxicated, asleep and even abandoning their posts entirely — often with severe consequences to residents, but rarely to the operators.

>>>For the Full Article

What steps do you feel should be taken to bring these facilities to justice and offer mentally ill Florida residents the care they deserve? Please share your thoughts below.

 

Comments

[Paula Apodaca]

Warehousing has never been a good solution. Still, it seems that the idea of reinstitutting communities for the disabled is beginning to reimerge. These folks in Florida should be sued and criminally prosecuted for fraud, endangering the welfare, and anything else they can think of.

[Dee]

Prosecute the legislators who allowed this to come about, even if they are no longer in office. I suspect that if you track back far enough and deeply enough, you will more often than not find a monetary transaction of some sort.

And don't think this is exclusive to Florida. I could tell you things that would curl your hair. Unfortunately, they don't even bother the people charged with and paid well to investigate them.

[Eileen Wray]

they should be closed and prosocuted

[chuck]

News like this , turns my stomach , human beings are just that , human beings! No human being deserves to be treated with such disrespect both verbal/ and /or physical. Institutions for the mentally ill , need , need , need local oversight , from the counties they reside in , & from the state government as well. I grew up in Florida , & believe me , there are plenty of people in Florida , to help pay taxes for institutions such as these.

[jackie Evans]

make them switch places. Let the resident take care of the care giver and do what they have done to them. Where will their independence go?