If a public hearing begins with the words “this is nothing like what happened at the Texas Youth Commission,” Lege watchers should strap in for tragedy. On Thursday the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services took testimony from Department of Aging and Disability Services Commissioner Adelaide Horn about critical failings in her agency.
The committee heard that, in December 2005, a patient at Lubbock State School – a medical facility for patients with severe educational and physical disabilities – died after being restrained by three staff members. A Department of Justice investigation said the patient died from a combination of physical stress and incorrectly applied restraint holds and that only one of the three staff members had received restraint training and they had been seen sleeping through the session.
There is the same drip-drip of information and lack of open investigation that has blighted the TYC investigation. Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, said she was going to have to limit her questions because answers may endanger future court cases – or DADS’ defense. The department has developed what it calls an improvement plan, but the committee has not seen it, and astoundingly, no one knows whether Justice requested, required, or suggested it. It also turned out that the department commissioned its own report but had only shown it to one, unnamed committee member, and even then only under a confidentiality agreement.
The department may not even be living up to its minimum responsibilities to the Lege. Sen. Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio, asked why he had not been told about events earlier, even though the rules said he should have been, and Horn had no answer. Uresti bluntly asked whether, if Justice had never got involved, this investigation would ever have become so public.
This article appears in March 30 • 2007.
