Fed oversight on disability care reassures

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For the next few years, an outside expert is going to be looking over the shoulders of those providing services to developmentally disabled Nebraskans.

Under the plan awaiting expected approval from U.S. District Court, Omahan John J. McGee will monitor state performance for up to four years. McGee, who will make unannounced visits to care centers as part of his duties, will turn in quarterly reports on whether Nebraska is improving its services.

The ramifications of the settlement will carry into funding decisions made by the governor and the Legislature. In a sense, state officials have lost a degree of control over their own destiny.

If they don’t provide funding at a level sufficient to provide adequate care, the state will be called onto the carpet in federal court.

State officials and legislators have no one but themselves to blame.

Health and Human Services Department officials agreed to the settlement to dodge a threatened federal lawsuit after the U.S. Justice Department issued a scathing report this March on conditions at the Beatrice State Developmental Center.

The report contained numerous substantiated instances of neglect and abuse. One case cited in the report told of a direct care worker who, in August 2007, “failed to bathe, check, change diapers or re-position six residents assigned to her care; instead BSDC investigators found that the staffer watched television and slept during her work shift.”

The report stated: “Our safety consultant concluded that the nature of many abuse and neglect allegations, and the frequency with which they are made, suggests a ‘cultural undercurrent that betrays human decency at the most fundamental levels … basic human dignities are violated with considerable regularity’ at BSDC.”

The 35-page settlement agreement awaiting court approval fleshes out a five-point plant announced earlier this year by state officials. One element of that plan is a reduction of residents at BSDC from 300 to 200 by Jan. 1 by moving them to community-based programs. The number of BSDC residents was 267 last week.

Although it’s appalling that conditions at BSDC had deteriorated to such an inhumane level before action was taken, the progress that the state has made recently under the leadership of John Wyvill, the new HHS director of developmental disability, should be recognized.

State officials even came in for some praise last week from the Justice Department’s Grace Chung Becker, who said they “have demonstrated a genuine commitment to addressing the needs of the state’s citizens with developmental disabilities.”

At the same time, there are more than a few skeptics who remember that Nebraska officials have made promises in the past that eventually were forgotten.

In that context, the knowledge that someone will be checking up on them for the next four years is reassuring.