MHMR Scandal: News Flash! Dewhurst Wants A Hearing

Lt. Governor David Dewhurst evidently woke up from some sort of coma yesterday and decided that the deaths of 186 patients at state residential facilities for the mentally retarded actually warrant some kind of a legislative hearing.

The deaths have been worthy of a hearing since December, when Governor Perry’s office found out about them.

That’s quite interesting because Governor Perry is telling everyone to “take a deep breath,” and not worry about the problems within the state’s MHMR facilities. Perhaps if you were taking a deep breath out of a paper sack into which you had just sprayed an inhalant, you could take the “don’t worry, be happy approach.”

Dewhurst says:

“The number that have died in the last 18 months is alarming, it’s terrifying to me and we’re going to take a look at this,” Dewhurst said.

So, does this mean Dewhurst wasn’t aware of this in December when it first came to the attention of the Governor’s office? Perhaps Perry’s staff does not play well with others and left the Lite Gov out of the loop on this one. Or, if he was aware of it in December, perhaps he was just taking Perry’s advice and “taking a deep breath:”

That report is I think about 18 months old and there have been a substantial amount of reforms that have been put in place and so I think again if we’ll just take a moment, take a deep breath, ask the appropriate questions of what has been done, then a lot of the concerns that that report had will be addressed,” Perry said.

State Sen. Jane Nelson, who chairs the Senate Health & Human Services Committee, is towing the Perry line, but for different reasons:

Senate Health and Human Services Chairman Jane Nelson, however, said she doesn’t want hearings before the state reaches a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice over its findings of abuse and neglect at the Lubbock State School.

“I don’t want to do anything to impede that,” said Nelson, R-Lewisville.

So, a DOJ Settlement is more important than people’s lives? Once again, Republicans are putting other matters above human needs.

This scandal is likely to erupt in as big a fashion as did the TYC scandal.

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