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Ugly scenes don't negate the logic of center's closure
Monday, April 17, 2000
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Using overheated rhetoric, parents and relatives said the scene was reminiscent of Nazi Germany, with the state taking control of their 44 loved ones and spiriting them out of Western Center while keeping family members at bay.
It was ugly, no doubt about it, and it's hard not to have some sympathy for parents who sincerely believe that the huge institution at Canonsburg was the best place for their mentally retarded children, many of whom had spent virtually their whole lives there.
But the fact is, the group homes that most of the residents have been moved to will provide the same kind of supports for the retarded adults in a much more normal, human-scale setting. If the protesting relatives had been willing to consider the benefits of this new life, and work with the state to make sure the residents' needs were met, the nightmare scenario of Wednesday's transfers could have been avoided. But in many instances they refused to even visit the new homes and talk with staff about what life there would be like.
The state Department of Public Welfare insisted that the tactics were necessary to keep the residents from being upset by relatives who had threatened to chain themselves to the beds of their loved ones to prevent moves. But it's hard to imagine that there wasn't some trauma involved in the early-morning dodge-and-elude maneuvers.
While those tactics were unsettling, in most cases, at least, the outcome was a new and likely enhanced life for residents. But 16 Western Center patients, for whom group homes were not yet ready, were moved to temporary quarters at another institution several hours away in Ebensburg. Not only does it increase the burden on relatives who want to visit, but it also means that the residents will be put through the trauma of two moves instead of one.
Perhaps the state felt it was better to deal with the move in one fell swoop, taking on the protesters all at once rather than in a piecemeal fashion. Or perhaps the state was simply unwilling to continue paying the exorbitant cost for maintaining a handful of people in an institutional setting. Whatever the calculus, this was an unnecessarily cruel interim step.
The closing of Western has dragged on for years, in part because of the family protests and legal actions, in part because it takes time to arrange suitable alternatives. Prolonging the life of the institution a few more months to limit the pain experienced by a few fragile residents seems the least the state could have done. In the end, however, the law and reason are on the side of allowing the residents to live in the least restrictive environment possible.
Group homes are no panacea. Without careful monitoring and family involvement, residents can suffer outrageous abuse and neglect in such settings, just as they can in institutions.
The difference is, if both group homes and institutions operate at optimum levels, group homes offer residents a chance for a fuller, richer life, even given the severe physical and mental limitations that circumscribe their worlds.
If the relatives of Western Center residents are finally willing to redirect the enormous amount of energy they invested trying to keep the institution open into making sure that the homes are of the highest quality and that residents needs are met, then there is a good chance that quality of life for their loved ones will improve, in some cases markedly. And that outcome will surely overshadow the few agonizing hours that surrounded the transfers to this new life.