By Desiree Hunter, Associated Press
Montgomery, AL – Residents at a state-run center for the mentally disabled are living in deplorable conditions and should be transferred to community-based programs, an advocacy group charged in a report released Monday.
The Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program said its 12-month study of the W.D. Partlow Developmental Center found the center underserves its 200 residents and unnecessarily drains $23 million in taxpayer money each year.
But the Alabama Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation, which runs the 85-year-old Tuscaloosa facility, said the report was skewed, misleading and unfair.
Alabama at one time had five such centers but all but Partlow have been closed and their residents transferred to community homes. The advocacy group wants Alabama to join a small group of states that have done away with institutionalizing the mentally disabled.
"I don't think that anybody chooses to live in an institution," ADAP executive director Ellen Gillespie, said Monday. "I think they deserve better than that and want better than that. It's just not good enough."
The Tuscaloosa-based group's 32-page report included pictures of what advocates said are the unfit living conditions at Partlow, ranging from covers missing from ceiling sprinklers and dirty air vents to mold-covered equipment and a toilet surrounded by garbage.
They also objected to residents being given jobs like cutting rags, shredding paper and dusting wire clothes hangers.
Gillespie said members of her organization visit Partlow regularly and the report was based on visits made in 2007 and 2008. She said issues that involved residents' immediate safety and well-being were reported to staff right away.
"Generally they tried to work with us but there are just so many problems that it's very difficult to fix all of it," she said.
Alabama Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation officials led family members, advocates and journalists on a two-hour tour of the facility Monday afternoon to counter the group's claims.
Spokesman John Zigeler said the department would like have everyone living in their communities, but 150 of Partlow's residents are there at their family's request and the other 50 have a complex array of issues that keep them from entering community programs.
"Admittedly, Partlow like most other comparable institutions, has problems occasionally. When this happens we work nonstop until the problem is corrected and we believe ADAP is aware of this," he said. "For this reason it was surprising to read such a harsh assessment of the services provided there."
Zigeler said the department will continue to work with ADAP to address some of the issues raised in the report and said some things had been corrected, such as firing the cleaning service responsible for the trash-strewn bathroom.