Lubbock State School: Another Legacy Of Failure For Perry

For almost five months, Texas Governor Rick Perry’s office has been aware of appalling conditions that have resulted in 17 deaths at the Lubbock State School, a facility for the mentally ill, and has done little or nothing:

A U.S. Justice Department report sent to Gov. Rick Perry just before Christmas said there had been more than 17 deaths at the school since June 2005.

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Wan Kim, the same official who this month cited horrific, life-threatening conditions at a Texas Youth Commission lockup in Edinburg, said investigators found that Lubbock State School employees improperly restrained residents, sedated them or left them “sitting in the hallway or lying in bed looking at the ceiling.”

The report said patients, many of whom are unable to move, speak or feed themselves, were given insufficient medical care. In some cases, they were given solid food even if they had a history of pneumonia from inhaling food particles, the report said.

In one cited case, employees found a woman unresponsive but failed to perform CPR or call for help for a half-hour. Paramedics determined she had been dead for hours because rigor mortis had already set in. And, in that case, investigators found employees had falsified reports to indicate someone had been checking on the woman.

Mr. Kim said many of the problems are indicative of a facility that is woefully understaffed.

The Lubbock school’s “failure to protect residents from harm stems from inadequate supervision, the failure to appropriately detect and prevent abuse and neglect, and an inadequate incident management system,” the report notes. “Consequently, residents are exposed to significant harm.”

First we have a situation where kids are getting raped and the governor does nothing. Now, we have a situation where people are dying and the governor does nothing. What’s next?

Luckily, a Democrat, State Sen. Elliot Shapleigh (D-El Paso), is demanding that something finally be done now that Perry’s office has sat on its proverbial tail:

State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh called on the Senate Health and Human Services Committee to look into the state school and suggested a wider look at Texas’ care of the mentally retarded. The state operates 13 facilities, including one in Denton, that provide round-the-clock care for the mentally retarded. There are about 350 residents at the Lubbock school.

“I want to know what happened at this state school,” said Mr. Shapleigh, D-El Paso. “And I want to know if there’s a systemic issue at other state schools.”

Of course, sensing the coming tidal wave, Perry’s lapdogs are begging us not to compare this situation to TYC:

But Mr. Perry’s office cautioned Thursday against comparing the state school system to the problems inside the TYC.

Spokesman Robert Black said the state’s Department of Aging and Disability Services, using an outside consultant, undertook its own investigation of the Lubbock facility shortly after the Justice Department visited in June 2005. The agency has installed across-the-board changes since then, he said, from appointing a new management team to hiring new medical directors and incident managers.

“The report issued in December does not reflect the current state of the school,” Mr. Black said. “Some would like to ramp up another emotional issue. But to compare [the state school system] to the TYC would be totally inappropriate. They’re two completely different situations; the only thing they have in common is they’re both state agencies.”

No, they also have in common that they evidently suffer from bad management and a governor who’s too busy trotting off to Dubai to know what’s going on in his own state facilities.

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