LINCOLN, Neb.—Statements from a top state official and consultant during and after a meeting about the troubled Beatrice State Developmental Center earlier this month angered and surprised Terry Kruse.
He’s the father of a mentally disabled man who had lived at the center.
Kruse says that what the two state officials said simply wasn’t true and put parents “in a bad light they don’t deserve.”
“There’s absolutely no trust between the parents and state anymore,” said Kruse, who lives in North Platte.
Kruse’s 35-year-old son was among nearly four dozen people forced to move out of the center in January when the state’s chief medical officer determined it was too dangerous for “medically fragile” residents.
The decision followed the death of an 18-year-old resident after she received what the state has acknowledged was inadequate care at the center.
About a third of the 47 residents moved from the center remain at hospitals, which are charging the state about $1,500 per person, per day.
At a legislative committee meeting earlier this month, a consultant hired by the state to help move the former residents out of the hospitals said there is enough space in community-based programs for them.
The consultant, Derrick Dufresne, told reporters afterward he didn’t know why parents and guardians weren’t agreeing to move their loved ones out of hospitals.
“The families … are not choosing to go forward,” Dufresne said.
John Wyvill, director of developmental disabilities for the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, said after the same meeting that Dufresne was negotiating with parents and guardians. Wyvill said “fear of the unknown” is one reason the parents have not agreed to move their loved ones again.
But Kruse says he has not resisted moving forward and has tried unsuccessfully for months to negotiate with state officials, including Wyvill. He says the state has not been a willing partner and suggestions the state has tried to negotiate are untrue.
Kruse says he has traveled to Lincoln from North Platte every couple weeks for the past four months looking, unsuccessfully, for answers.
There isn’t the capacity in outside programs that the consultant said there is, Kruse says.
And he knows that, he says, because he’s checked for months.
Suggestions he was given by state officials ended up being dead ends.
Kruse says that during a meeting with Wyvill and another state official, he was handed a booklet when he asked what program might be able to take his son, and the one he tracked down was already full. Kruse says he was told by an official with the program, “The chances of getting your son in are nil,” and that it had an “unending” waiting list.
Instead of the community-based programs that consultant Dufresne said have the room for former BSDC residents, Kruse says, Dufresne gave him only one option: Buy and retrofit a home where his son could stay, with care provided by staffers who would be found and possibly paid for by the state.
Another parent whose child remains in a hospital, Joan O’Meara, said she was given a similar option.
Kruse says that option is unacceptable because of costs, concern their children won’t receive the professional, round-the-clock care they need, and the possibility it could lead to yet another move that will stress and possibly endanger their children.
The Beatrice center has been plagued with problems in recent years, including repeatedly failing federal inspections, accused of hundreds of cases of abuse and neglect.
The federal government has decertified the center, which could cost the state about $29 million a year unless the state wins its likely futile appeal.
It now houses about 180 people, most of them with mental retardation and other developmental disabilities.
In one of his trips to the Capitol, Kruse happened to run into Gov. Dave Heineman. He asked Heineman whether he realized that the former BSDC residents had nowhere to go.
Kruse said the governor, whom he has spoken to several times since the January moves, told him “we’re working on it” when Kruse asked him whether he knew parents and their children were in limbo.
Several weeks later, Kruse got word secondhand that the state was contracting with Mosaic, a nonprofit, to build several small facilities that would be licensed to provide professional, round-the-clock care.
The group plans to open 11 facilities across the state able to hold a total of more than 65 developmentally disabled people. But the first four won’t be open until February, and it could be two years before the other seven are up and running.
Meanwhile, the state has more than 2,000 developmentally disabled people on a waiting list for services besides those in hospitals. And the state wants to move between 60 and 90 more people out of the Beatrice center.
———
On the Net:
Department of Health and Human Services:
