Closing Development Center puts lives at risk

This letter is in response to Nancy Gardner’s opinion piece about the Sonoma Developmental Center that ran in the April 30 issue of The Sun.

A mortality rate which was 80 percent higher for those who were taken out of SDC and the other developmental centers following the Coffelt Lawsuit — is this okay?

Also, as stated a report by Dr. Place of the California State University in Sacramento: “This data strongly suggests that these consumers have left a congregate setting but have lost valuable and necessary medical services, stability, friendships, community, programs and qualified staff. Their lives have, at times, been put at risk. They have lost familiar physicians and caregivers, who have been replaced by lower paid, less qualified staff. They have lost high quality day programs to be moved into poor babysitting situations.”

Dr. Place further states, “The primary reason for changing the consumers living arrangements from a DC to community living facilities is to improve their quality of life by integrating them into non-institutionalized lifestyles.” She further adds “physical, emotional, and mental disabilities interfere with or prevent integration and some consumers are so physically disabled that they will never integrate in the community” and “while consumers have been moved to the community, it appears that the Department of Developmental Services (DDS) and the Regional Centers have not yet found a way to integrate consumers into the non-disability world. Simply busing them to McDonalds is not integration.”

About 15 years ago when Paul Ferrario and I attended our National Organization’s Initiative in Washington, we met with Senator Feinstein’s staff and they invited us to her Thursday morning breakfast.

She was open to questions so I stood up and let her know why we were in DC meeting with legislators and about our fears for Sonoma Developmental Center. She went to the podium and she said, “when I was Mayor of San Francisco and people were being taken out of SDC and all these homes were opening in the Bay Area and I was hearing all these complaints, I went out and inspected 40 homes. I didn’t send someone to do this, I went to see for myself and I can tell you I did not see even one home where I would put one of my family members. I saw developmentally disabled children being on leashes when taken out for walks, homes that were filthy and lots of drugs in the refrigerators and very little food.”

I know things have changed somewhat since then but not that much. There are still horror stories and the lack of professional help and transparency. I know some bad things have happened at SDC, but at least they were reported by concerned staff and the situation was handled and stopped. Who is going to know what happens in these private homes? The Regional Centers don’t make regular visits or unannounced visits. I think the mortality studies tell the story.

I know when you visited SDC 35 years ago it was over crowded and under staffed, but with the hard work and dedicated of the families involved and the legislators at that time, SDC is now a state-of-the-art facility where the every day care is excellent. Again, the every day care is second to none and the tradition of caring for this unique population has been handed down through the years for over 100 years. Now that the facility is the way it needs to be, you all want to close it and destroy everything we have worked to hard to achieve.

Mary O’Riordan, PHA Past President