Hundreds with disabilities in NJ are forced into nursing homes, new report says
Hundreds of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities have been forced into nursing homes that lack the proper oversight or resources to care for them, a group of New Jersey advocates said in a report released Monday.
Disability Rights New Jersey warned that people with behavioral disorders, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome and other conditions are too often sent to nursing homes when group homes claim they can no longer accommodate them, or when home care becomes too challenging for elderly parents.
The group urged the state to better track such patients and to beef up monitoring of nursing homes where they may be housed. Those facilities were the site of an estimated 10,000 deaths in New Jersey during the COVID pandemic, and disability advocates said they're often poorly prepared to care for those with complex disabilities.
“The state is not doing enough to identify these individuals or ensure their proper care and placement,” said Mercedes Witowsky, executive director of the New Jersey Council on Developmental Disabilities, a state advisory group that funded the report.
How many with IDD are wrongly in nursing homes?
Best guesses put the number wrongly in nursing homes at hundreds, but with oversight split between the state Department of Human Services, which oversees programs for people with developmental disabilities, and the Health Department, which oversees nursing homes, people are falling through the cracks, advocates said.
Eva Loayza-McBride, a spokeswoman for the Department of Human Services, didn't immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
The report was the result of a yearlong investigation that included hundreds of interviews and visits to 70 Garden State nursing homes, said Gwen Orlowski, executive director of Disability Rights New Jersey.
Placed in homes that fail to meet their diverse medical, physical and psychological needs, advocates said, such residents face conditions that violate Olmstead v. L.C., the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said the segregation of people with disabilities was illegal under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“They are grim places for anyone to live in New Jersey — not all of them — but for the most part they're not a great place for anybody,” said Orlowski. “We don't really think they should be in there at all, or only in very limited circumstances.”
The report said that not only did people not have input into nursing home placements, but these decisions were often made counter to their wishes.
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Areas of concern
The report cited these shortfalls by the state in protecting patients with intellectual and developmental disabilities:
The state needs to track the IDD population living in nursing homes more accurately.
The state's screening system, which should be designed to evaluate the best setting for care, fails to comply with federal guidelines and leads to undue institutionalization.
People with disabilities are often denied their constitutional right to choose their residence.
Advocates urged these reforms:
Centralized data collection and tracking of nursing home residents with disabilities.
An improved screening process when it comes to nursing home admissions.
Transparent nursing home practices that take a potential resident's needs, rights and preference into account.
A plan transitioning people back to their communities whenever possible.
Increased Department of Health staffing for oversight.
Collaboration on improving admission policies between stakeholders, including Disability Rights New Jersey.
Gene Myers covers disability and mental health for NorthJersey.com and the USA TODAY Network. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: myers@northjersey.com
Twitter: @myersgene
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ disabilities group says hundreds wrongly put into nursing homes
