Wilson Orders Probe of Transfers of Developmentally Disabled

The transfer of patients out of Camarillo State Hospital into community homes will soon come under scrutiny as Gov. Pete Wilson launches a statewide probe into allegations that many of California’s most severely developmentally disabled residents are receiving substandard care in such facilities.

Sean Walsh, Wilson’s press secretary, confirmed Friday that the governor has ordered an independent examination of the placement and treatment of the developmentally disabled in community programs, including patients who have left Camarillo since last July as the mental hospital heads toward closure.

The review comes amid a storm of criticism leveled by advocates for the developmentally disabled, alleging that state officials had been funneling patients from institutions into less-costly community facilities with little regard for their health or well-being.

“When [patients] leave the institutions, all of their services have to be pieced together,” said Dr. Robert P. Liberman, who headed the world-renowned UCLA research unit at Camarillo State Hospital until it closed earlier this year.

“At Camarillo, we had rather experienced doctors, we had dentists, we had psychiatrists all under one roof,” Liberman added. “Now they’re sending these people into catch-as-catch-can community placements that frequently do not have the coordinated, comprehensive and continuous services that are necessary for people with mental disabilities.”

Walsh called the complaints against the department “gross exaggerations,” and noted that internal review had determined that most of the allegations were unfounded.

But in an abundance of caution, Walsh said the governor directed state officials to contract with an outside firm to perform a comprehensive audit of the policies and practices used by the Department of Developmental Services when it moves clients from state institutions into community homes.

“The bottom line is we want to get a clear view of what’s happening and to make sure the state is doing the best job it can under the law,” Walsh said.

Critics of community placements, however, said they hoped the governor’s review would not just be a rubber stamp of the administration’s policies.

For months they have lobbied state officials to take a hard look at the system, alleging that patients were being forced out of large institutions into community programs--mostly group homes--unprepared to care for them.

They cited evidence gathered by UC Riverside professor David Strauss, who concluded that patients who live in community homes are at 72% greater risk of dying prematurely than those in state institutions.

And they were joined by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who last month urged Wilson to appoint an independent commission to study the issue.

“This is precisely what the senator hoped would occur,” said Bill Chandler, a Feinstein spokesman. “The key to all this, however, is that this truly be an independent review and not a whitewash. There are simply too many questions about too many transfers, and the truth needs to be determined.”

In a call for bids from various consulting firms, state officials said the auditors would be expected to investigate whether the department is using sound judgment when it decides who is to be moved into community facilities.

Other areas of investigation include whether state officials are selecting the appropriate facilities for each individual and whether they are properly monitoring patients’ care once transfers take place.

The audit is expected to take 90 to 100 days to complete, and will cost between $350,000 and $500,000.

Walsh said the audit would not delay the closure of Camarillo State Hospital--scheduled to shut down June 30--or the transfer of any of its patients to other facilities.

But he said as part of the review, the placement of Camarillo State’s clients in community facilities would be examined.

Though the bulk of the patients transferred from Camarillo have gone to other state facilities, 80 patients have been funneled into community programs since July 1 of last year.

The probe was met with mixed emotions by Gene West, whose son Patrick was transferred from the state hospital to a group home earlier this year.

West considers himself lucky. He was able to find a good home for Patrick in Oxnard, a place where he has settled in and done well. But he said for other parents--or patients without parents--he knows community placement can often lead to different results.

“We’ve been advocating to get more oversight of community facilities and I don’t know whether that’s going to be accomplished or not,” West said. “I always suspect it’s a political thing. I’m not sure about the governor’s sincerity.”

The movement of developmentally disabled clients into community homes has been a long-standing controversy.

Some parents advocate that their children should be allowed to live as normally as possible, but others maintain that their sons and daughters would suffer without the high level of care provided by state hospitals.

In recent years, however, great emphasis has been placed on providing living opportunities for developmentally disabled people in community programs. That push was spurred by the 1994 settlement of a lawsuit demanding that patients have more options outside of state institutions..

In settling the lawsuit, the state agreed to move 2,000 patients out of large developmental centers and spend millions of dollars more for services for them to live more independently.

Since then, the debate has been heating up.

At a special state Senate hearing earlier this year in Sacramento, critics attacked the state’s system of caring for the developmentally disabled in community settings.

That hearing came on the heels of a federal lawsuit filed by a doctor at an Orange County development center, alleging that patients were being transferred to “ill-equipped” community group homes.

But for many of those who have been battling to shore up the system, they have little confidence that the governor’s independent review will produce that result.

“It’s politics as usual,” said Robert Cross, vice president of the California Assn. of State Hospitals-Parents Council for the Retarded.

“Politicians naturally want to try to find no problem, that there’s no fire in the theater, so to speak,” Cross continued. “I think Gov. Wilson is looking out for his own political future.”