Faced with reports of patient abuse and several advocates for people with disabilities demanding its closure, the Rosewood Center had an unlikely ally: Families of the patients who live there.
“We will rest easier knowing he can spend the rest of his life at Rosewood,” Harry Yost said of his son, Larry, who has lived at the center for the past 40 years. “We should be having admissions, not evictions.”
Standing before a banner declaring “Families Know Best,” supporters of the state-run center in Owings Mills on Wednesday defended the caregivers of about 200 adults who are profoundly disabled.
Rosewood is one of four remaining state-run centers for people with developmental disabilities, down from 11, and the state has all but halted new admissions at each.
State officials attributed that decision to a federal law passed in 1999 requiring people with disabilities to be treated in community-based centers rather than institutions whenever possible.
Lawmakers who want to close the 200-bed Rosewood cite the $190,000-per-year price tag for each resident and recent reports of abuse.
New admissions at Rosewood were halted last month after a state study documented instances when deaf residents weren?t provided with an interpreter and residents were restrained with straitjackets for minor offenses.
A patient with a history of violence stole a knife and stabbed another resident in December. For more than two weeks, workers failed to report a women who removed all of her toenails.
Lawmakers from the state?s eighth district, which includes Rosewood, said problems are exacerbated by staffing shortages and an influx of patients sent by the court system ? criminals found mentally unfit to stand trial or guilty by reason of mental defect.
But they called the center a county asset not only for its services, but for the sprawling land it?s built on.
“There are problems. Let?s not kid ourselves,” said Del. Jon Cardin, D-District 11. “But let?s fix the problems as opposed to just closing up shop.”
