In 2012, a resident at the Lanterman Developmental Center in Los
Angeles County was found to have blunt force trauma in her genital area.
The case is unsolved.
She is known in public records as Client 98, a disabled
woman living at the Lanterman Developmental Center, a state-run
board-and-care facility in Los Angeles County that houses roughly 100
men and women with disorders such as cerebral palsy and severe autism.
On the morning of Nov. 6, 2012, an aide was helping Client
98 from the shower to the bed when the aide noticed drops of blood on
the floor. A health services specialist found that the woman had a tear
in her genital area.
An on-site physician examined Client 98, whose age was not
included in public records, and concluded that someone might have
sexually assaulted her. She was taken to the hospital for a full
examination.
“It was some type of blunt force trauma, but I cannot tell what,”
said a nurse who examined her, according to public records. The nurse confirmed an assault had occurred.
The unsolved case of Client 98 was in
reports
by the California Department of Public Health documenting life inside
Lanterman Developmental Center and another state board-and-care
facility, the Fairview Developmental Center in Orange County. Totaling
more than 500 pages, these reports offer a dispiriting glimpse into
alleged violence and other misconduct harming severely developmentally
disabled residents in these two facilities.
The state inspectors, who complete the compliance surveys
on behalf of the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services,
focused on about 30 residents at the facilities, which together house
more than 400 residents. Although the reports are public, the names and
other identifying information about patients were kept confidential for
privacy reasons. The surveys occur no more than 15.9 months apart,
according to federal guidelines. On average, they occur 12 months apart,
according to a state Department of Public Health spokesman.
Both the Department of Public Health, which inspects the
state’s five developmental centers, and the state Department of
Developmental Services, which runs them, have been under intense
scrutiny for overlooking obvious cases of abuse at the facilities, which
collectively house more than 1,300 men and women. A
series of reports
from The Center for Investigative Reporting found the developmental
centers’ on-site police force, the Office of Protective Services, has
failed to conduct thorough investigations into claims of abuse.
“The fact that they're finding all of these problems at all
of these facilities now really suggests they have not been doing
thorough survey investigations over a number of years at these
facilities,” said Leslie Morrison, director of the investigations unit
at Disability Rights California.
In response, a spokesman for the health department said all
surveys are conducted according to a process laid out by the Centers
for Medicare & Medicaid Services. “Each survey is dynamic, and
findings from surveys stand independently,” Corey Egel said in a written
statement.
Since December 2012, federal regulators have penalized all
four of California's large developmental centers, located in Sonoma,
Orange, Los Angeles and Tulare counties. A fifth, smaller developmental
center in Riverside County was found to have compliance violations in
2012, but it faced no state or federal penalties.
In January, the health department began removing Medicaid
funding for Fairview, Lanterman and the Porterville Developmental Center
in the Central Valley for failing the compliance surveys, but recent
agreements between the Department of Developmental Services and the
California Department of Public Health to improve conditions halted the
decertification process.
Full Article & Source:
Abuse findings continue at developmental centers, despite state scrutiny
