Brain-damaged D.C. kids and adults are being “treated like garbage” in a Florida clinic that takes in tens of millions of public dollars, a scathing new report found.
The University Legal Services report paints a grim picture of the lives of D.C. residents shipped off to the Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation. Patients there showed scars from “horseplay” with staff, are routinely slammed to the ground by staff, locked away in their rooms for days at a time and illegally doped up with high-powered drugs.
An obese patient was regularly hauled off to a cattle market and weighed on the scales there in front of the crowds, University Legal investigators found.
The report, titled “Segregated & Secluded,” is scheduled to be released today. University Legal is the congressionally appointed monitor for D.C.’s handicapped. It began looking at the Florida Institute after complaints of abuse in 2006. Florida Institute has taken in dozens of D.C. residents — and millions of public dollars — for at least five years.
Clinic lawyer Jay Adams disputed the report’s findings. He said University Legal investigators didn’t come to Florida with open minds.
“They came in with the thought that they were not going to find this to be an acceptable program,” he said. “The Florida Institute has an incredibly aggressive policy about reporting anything. We may be the most inspected institute in America.”
Today’s report is a direct attack on the Florida clinic but it’s also an indictment of D.C. officials, who’ve reportedly sent kids and brain-damaged adults to the clinic without following up on how they’re doing. The report says city officials didn’t begin monitoring the clinic until The Examiner reported on its troubles last summer.
“As a city, we can do better,” said Jennifer Lav, lead investigator for today’s report. “It’s going to be a huge challenge, going forward.”
City welfare officials didn’t respond to requests for comment.
UDC law professor Matt Fraidin, an expert on child protection law, said today’s report shows the city has “structural problems” with guarding the most vulnerable.
“Perhaps the most frightening thing about this report, frankly, is that the problems at Florida were occurring long before the Jacks/Fogle tragedy,” he said, referring to the deaths of four girls in a Southeast squatters’ home that has scalded Mayor Adrian Fenty and city bureaucrats.
Got a tip on the child welfare system? Call Bill Myers at 202-459-4956 or send him e-mail, bmyers@dcexaminer.
