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Parents call for changes in abuse
law
November 8, 2007
By Valerie Bauman
ALBANY, N.Y. - The parents of an
autistic boy who died while under the care of a residential facility
called on Legislators Thursday to abolish the current social
services law standard of abuse and instead create a new, more
expansive institutional abuse law.
Michael Carey said state agencies
that oversee disabled care have a conflict of interest when
investigating institutional abuse.
Carey is the father of 13-year-old
Jonathan Carey, who died earlier this year when two aides took him
and another teen on shopping errands around the Albany area. One of
the aides restrained Jonathan Carey in the back of the van and he
stopped breathing, police said.
The men then ran errands and
returned to the facility later. Carey was pronounced dead at a
hospital an hour later.
"Withholding of food and meals is
already an abuse, what we want to do is make it a felony," Michael
Carey said.
Jonathan's Law was enacted in his
son's name to allow parents and guardians to have more information
on the care of their disabled children. Carey said the law allowed
him to receive documentation that his son had been deprived of food
on several occasions as a method of discipline _ something he felt
was covered up.
Carey said if all investigations of
abuse are internal, abuse and neglect are more likely to be covered
up. The Commission on Quality Care and the Office of Mental
Retardation and Developmental Disabilities both review reports of
abuse and neglect in residential systems.
"The Commission ... has never
ignored nor attempted to cover up instances of abuse or neglect of
individuals with disabilities," said Robert Boehlert, an attorney
for the commission, in a written statement. "In fact, the commission
must operate under the provisions of the state social services law,
which set the standards the commission must apply in reviewing
allegations of child abuse and neglect."
"We haven't identified any of the
cover up alleged by the Carey family," OMRDD spokeswoman Kara Smith
said. "Additionally we cooperated with the state inspector general
in a review surrounding the facts."
Boehlert said Office of Mental
Health and OMRDD systems would define more things to be abuse than
the state social services law would.
"Under OMRDD definitions of abuse,
yelling at a child could be considered abuse," he said.
Boehlert said the social service
standard would define abuse as injury or substantial risk of injury.
This could include not receiving enough food, if physical injury or
substantial risk of injury occurred, he said.
Carey also accused the OMRDD and
the CQC of covering up "thousands" of cases of abuse to protect
private and state facilities.
The CQC receives about 300
allegations of child abuse each year in residential homes, Boehlert
said. About eight percent of those are substantiated.
Carey also warned parents of
children in disabled care facilities that Jonathan's Law allows
parents to receive records retroactively back to January 2003, but
that right expires Dec. 31. He said parents must issue their
requests for help in writing.
Margaret Raustiala, of Long Island,
is the mother of a 37-year-old severely autistic man who lives in a
group home in New York. She has also worked as a lobbyist to raise
money for municipal agencies and not-for-profit groups serving the
disabled. She expressed sympathy for Carey for the loss of his son,
but firmly disagreed with his stance.
"That is very very sad, that
doesn't give him license to trash a system that is helping thousands
of others," she said.
The CQC is an independent state
agency charged with protecting the rights and quality of life for
New Yorkers with disabilities. The OMRDD provides services for
people with developmental disabilities.
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