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Shock therapy expense blasted
By: RORY SCHULER
October 5, 2006
TAUNTON - In a symbolic stand against a therapy he has long
considered inhumane, School Committee member and state
Department of Social Services caseworker Alfred W. Baptista Jr.
refused to vote to approve payment to the Judge Rotenberg
Educational Center.
A 19-year-old city student suffering from autism,
mental retardation and extreme fits of violence has been getting
treatment and living at the center for the past three years. His
mother praises the therapy, which involves supervised,
court-ordered, occasional skin-shocks to curb dangerous, erratic
behavior.A
mental health professional herself, she credits the center for
saving her child's life.
The topic emerged publicly during a finance and
law subcommittee meeting last month. Baptista and fellow committee
member Richard J. Faulkner are strongly opposed to the district
picking up the $18,000 monthly tab - or more than $200,000 a year -
for the treatment.
Several other committee members - chairwoman
Christine A. Fagan, Josephine B. Almeida and Peter H. Corr - support
the mother's decision, which has the approval of Massachusetts
courts and the school's special education administrators.
As the committee heard a motion to approve more
than $1 million in districtwide bills, the typically rubber-stamped
approval was halted by Baptista. He requested the Rotenberg Center
bill be separated from the list and voted on separately.
Faulkner seconded the motion.
A motion was needed to pay the Rotenberg bill on
its own. After a few moments of silence, Fagan made a motion to pay
the bill, seconded by Corr. The motion passed narrowly by voice
alone, and Mayor Robert G. Nunes ushered the meeting forward without
a roll call vote.
Before the meeting, Baptista passed a scathing
26-page study by New York state to his fellow board members, urging
them to read it. The Center is under review by that state's
Department of Education. Legislation to outlaw shock therapy in the
Bay State has stalled repeatedly.
"There are rapists and murderers in prison,"
Baptista said. "This kind of therapy can't be used there. You
shouldn't be able to do this to children either." |
