Local
D.C. residents still in shock treatment center
By: Bill Myers
Examiner Staff Writer
October 4, 2008
Seven months after D.C. officials promised to have gotten the District’s disabled and mentally ill citizens out of a Massachusetts shock-therapy clinic, three of them still are confined in the school, The Examiner has learned.
The Judge Rotenberg Center is one of the only clinics in the country authorized to use electroshock and other “aversive” therapies on its wards. D.C. officials said they were horrified to discover that that the city was paying to house at least 10 mentally ill or disabled children and adults at Rotenberg. Peter Nickles, the city’s interim attorney general, promised to have every D.C. resident out of Rotenberg by March.
Yet the clinic continues to treat two children and a disabled adult from Washington, records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show and schools spokeswoman Dena Iverson confirmed.
“We are working diligently to find other placements for the two remaining students and will move them to other schools as soon as their placements are secured,” Iverson said in an e-mail statement. She refused to discuss the matter further.
The Examiner has written extensively about Rotenberg, which is facing a criminal investigation after three of its patients — one of them an Alexandria boy — were snatched from their beds in the middle of the night and hooked up to shock machines. The “order” for the shocks was given by a runaway from the clinic who made a prank call and impersonated a clinic supervisor.
Aversive therapies like electric shocks are extremely rare, and critics of the practice are mounting pressure on the American Psychological Association to ban them outright. But Rotenberg officials say aversive therapies offer the last, best hope to desperately ill, disabled or disturbed patients.
For critics of the District’s $300 million special education system, Rotenberg is just one of several warehouses where the city’s most vulnerable children are shipped with little regard for their safety or welfare. Last month, a federal court monitor blasted Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee for ignoring the free-falling special education system.
Rhee declined comment for this story.
After The Examiner began documenting problems at clinics like Rotenberg, D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3, introduced legislation barring city officials from sending wards to any school or clinic that uses aversive therapy.
“It’s tantamount to torture,” Cheh told The Examiner, “and we’re paying for it.”
The Judge Rotenberg Center is one of the only clinics in the country authorized to use electroshock and other “aversive” therapies on its wards. D.C. officials said they were horrified to discover that that the city was paying to house at least 10 mentally ill or disabled children and adults at Rotenberg. Peter Nickles, the city’s interim attorney general, promised to have every D.C. resident out of Rotenberg by March.
Yet the clinic continues to treat two children and a disabled adult from Washington, records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show and schools spokeswoman Dena Iverson confirmed.
“We are working diligently to find other placements for the two remaining students and will move them to other schools as soon as their placements are secured,” Iverson said in an e-mail statement. She refused to discuss the matter further.
The Examiner has written extensively about Rotenberg, which is facing a criminal investigation after three of its patients — one of them an Alexandria boy — were snatched from their beds in the middle of the night and hooked up to shock machines. The “order” for the shocks was given by a runaway from the clinic who made a prank call and impersonated a clinic supervisor.
Aversive therapies like electric shocks are extremely rare, and critics of the practice are mounting pressure on the American Psychological Association to ban them outright. But Rotenberg officials say aversive therapies offer the last, best hope to desperately ill, disabled or disturbed patients.
For critics of the District’s $300 million special education system, Rotenberg is just one of several warehouses where the city’s most vulnerable children are shipped with little regard for their safety or welfare. Last month, a federal court monitor blasted Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee for ignoring the free-falling special education system.
Rhee declined comment for this story.
After The Examiner began documenting problems at clinics like Rotenberg, D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3, introduced legislation barring city officials from sending wards to any school or clinic that uses aversive therapy.
“It’s tantamount to torture,” Cheh told The Examiner, “and we’re paying for it.”
