INSTITUTIONALIZATION VS. REHABILITATION 5/17/07

In the state that is dieing to pay for almost everyone's health problems, it was interesting to note that some folks with brain injuries are crying "foul." The dirty little secret of nursing homes everywhere is that in the bid for dwindling funds, they have become repositories for folks with brain injuries [both acquired and traumatic], folks found to be mentally ill, folks unable to go home immediately after hospitalization but not sick enough to take up hospital beds and so forth. Anyone who has had direct experience with a loved one in a coma being shipped off to a nursing home [uh, thanks managed care and health mediphorical discintegrarganizations] is familiar with exactly what kind of "rehabilitation" such places offer. It is about time that folks with brain injuries stuck in nursing homes raise their voices in protest. Apparently, Massachusetts provides some services for some folks with t.b.i. but has ignored those folks with strokes and other acquired brain injuries by shutting them away in nursing homes.

Community living with natural supports is much preferred for any civil [civil= human being who is not a law-breaker, able to live in society without being a threat to that society] over institutionalization. Group homes are far down on the list of preferences, yet congregate living is still better than existence in a nursing home. The ideal is for folks with any disability to be able to choose where they will live and then given the means to utilize the [hopefully natural] supports needed to be successful. No doubt, most folks want to be in their own home surrounded by their loved ones. Some may wish to live in an apartment with or without a roommate or two. [N.B. Keeping one of us in a nursing home is far more expensive than allowing us to have a true say in our lives].

To those of you who talk about "special needs," we do not have "special needs." We have the same needs that you do. We have the same needs for self-determination, love, friendships, communications, mobility, sexual expression, productivity, societal roles, a space to call our own, and community participation that you have. Get a clue people. By calling our needs "special," you divorce yourselves from our humanity. Are you afraid that you will wind up like us? We are not contagious. [Wait. Maybe I am. Two of my friends came down with traumatic brain injury after I did]. I remember a woman boarding a bus in Phoenix. I was attempting to get my fare out to put it in the little fare grabbing machine which was new to me. She appeared to be afraid of my walking stick. Or maybe it was what the walking stick represented. Or maybe that somehow I was going to leap off of the bus and steal her bicycle on the rack outside in front of the bus. I dunno. Fear this. Fear a bunch of us united together in our anger and strength determined not to be locked away in nursing homes.

In this society, those of us who become disabled quickly find out what it is like to be a second-class citizen. Some surrender to despair, some ignore the situation, and the rest of us get angry and politically active through organizations like A.D.A.P.T. My sincere hope is that Massachusetts will choose to spend healthcare dollars on her disabled citizens stuck in nursing homes rather than continue to spend them on those pesky illegal aliens who are snapping up construction jobs [and cluttering up emergency rooms] all over the country.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.