Inclusion Daily Express -- Rosewood Center Gets Another Bad Report

Inclusion Daily Express Logo

International Disability Rights News Service
Click here for today's headlines & home page

Keeping advocates informed, inspired and connected since 1999.
Click here for daily or weekly delivery . . . OR
Try Inclusion Daily Express for ten days FREE . . .

Rosewood Center Gets Another Bad Report
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
December 13, 2007

OWINGS MILLS, MARYLAND--Disability rights advocates are again calling for Maryland officials to close Rosewood Center after state inspectors found conditions there that continued to put residents' safety and health at risk.

The 12-page report, released late last month, is the fourth in just over a year in which the state's Office of Health Care Quality criticized the institution, which houses about 160 people with developmental disabilities. According to the Baltimore Sun, inspectors learned, among other things, that one resident ended up in intensive care after being given the wrong medication. During the early November visit, they also found a resident strapped to his wheelchair, sitting over a puddle of urine.

"Those are very, very serious indiscretions," said Wendy Kronmiller, director of the Office of Health Care Quality.

While Kronmiller reportedly warned Rosewood's director, Robert Day, that the facility could lose federal Medicaid funding if the problems are not corrected immediately, the state apparently has no plans to shutter the institution any time soon.

"When are they going to take action to protect people with disabilities?" asked Laura Howell, executive director of the Maryland Association of Community Services for Persons with Developmental Disabilities.

For years, disability rights advocates have been pushing the state to close Rosewood and move its residents into the community. Even though new admissions were halted three times this year, many say problems there seem to be getting worse.

In September, health officials reported that they found the facility unsanitary -- including cockroaches and rat feces in food preparation areas and sewage pipes leaking on medical equipment -- some residents not receiving enough nutrition, and staff failing to protect residents from assaults by other residents.

"What more can you possibly do?" asked Brian Cox, executive director of the Maryland Developmental Disabilities Council.

"To say you'll go in and take care of it is absurd."

Related:
"State threatens Rosewood Center again" (Baltimore Sun)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/07/red/1213a.htm
"Rosewood Center" (Inclusion Daily Express Archives)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/institutions/md/rosewood.htm

Click here for top of this page

Purchase this story for your website or newsletter . . .

Here's what subscribers say about Inclusion Daily Express. . .

Keeping advocates informed, inspired and connected since 1999.
Click here for daily or weekly delivery . . . OR
Try Inclusion Daily Express for ten days FREE . . .

Get your news here!