Recently, United Cerebral Palsy issued its national report card on inclusion, ranking the fifty states on their attempts to serve individuals with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities in community and family settings.
North Carolina ranked 43rd over all. You can read the press release here, and the complete report here. (Warning: pdf) Most notable to me is that NC continues to rank in the top 10 states nationally in terms of the number of people–over two thousand–housed in large institutional settings (16+ residents).
And while several states have closed their institutions entirely (Go, “Bama!), North Carolina is rebuilding ours.
Just this year, Governor Perdue participated in the ground breaking of a replacement for Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro, NC. And recently, the NC Department of Health & Human Services began seeking bids for the reconstruction of Broughton Hospital in Morganton, NC–a project with a total budget of $154,772,802.
Why, in the face of data that supports downsizing institutions as good policy, and the clear example of our neighbor states, do we continue to invest in these types of large congregate settings? Even with a federal DOJ investigation pending against NC regarding our failure to provide community-based living options for people with disabilities as required by the ADA and the Olmstead Decision?
I am not saying that hospitals are not an important part of the continuum–they are. But consider this–for what we are spending to build a hospital in Morganton, we could invest in community hospital beds in Charlotte and Asheville and serve the vast majority of people who are displaced to that state hospital.
My angle is that we do it, not because it’s truly needed, but because jobs are truly needed. Communities–like Goldsboro, and Morganton, and Butner–depend upon the institutions in their community for employment. Not to mention the construction work that goes into maintaining facilities that are falling apart.
And the problem with this seemingly symbiotic relationship is that people with disabilities are stuck in the middle. As long as we continue to divert funds to institutional care, there will never be enough money to support people living in the community. And as long as there isn’t enough support for people to live in the community, there will always be a need for institutional care.
NC’s people with disabilities deserve better than 43rd in the nation.
miangle--like triangle, but with only one corner 