Most of the [Tufts clinic] patients live in group homes, and their disabilities can be so severe that many can’t sit still or follow simple instructions. Some have seizures. Others spit, kick, and thrash about when receiving care.
Irons points out that Tufts clinical specialists spend an extra three years in dental school learning how to deal with developmentally disabled people.
This article and photo, in my view, shows how the traditional MSM — the old-fashioned newspaper article, in this case — can still outdo the blogosphere in educating the public about state policy. If there is a chance to restore funding in the Legislature and save this clinic, it will be because of this article.
Meanwhile, you have to love the juxtaposition in the article of the response of Jean McGuire, assistant secretary of Health and Human Services, to the planned closure of this, the largest dental clinic in the state for persons with special needs. “We are not anticipating an interruption in services,” she said.
The emptiness of that promise rings out like a hammer on a tin can. It's the same as the empty promises we've been hearing for years that care and services will be equal or better in the community system once the state facilities for persons with mental retardation, such as Fernald, are closed.
Not sure how much this program needs to survive, but here’s a funding idea: Close the Tobacco Tax Loophole! Consumption of cheap tobacco alternatives like candy-flavored dip/chew and kid-friendly cigars is on the rise. Especially since these addictive products were left out of the 2008 $1/pack increase on cigarettes. Why not equalize the user fee on these health hazards as well, which lead to higher rates of oral lesions and cancers, and put the new revenue into valuable, worthy programs like the Tufts Dental clinic?
says, “we’re not anticipating an interruption in service,” while closing down a vitally important dental clinic serving 2100 people with disabilities…what she really means is “anticipating would indicate some level of planning, which we’re not doing….so we’re just assuming that dental services in the community will just magically be available.” Is it November yet?
We have Tim ‘Tea Party/soon-to-be-indicted/Scott Brown wannabe’ Cahill running on a far right platform of getting rid of Romneycare, somehow repealing Obamacare, and ‘fiscal conservatism’ from a man who has led a lifetime of diverting state fiscal resources to his cronies and benefactors. We have Charlie Baker who on paper is a moderate, sensible, smart, ‘better management’ style of Republican long thought extinct, but in reality is caving into the far right of his party by opposing the health care bill and promising not to raise taxes (meaning his cuts will be even more severe than Deval’s).
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p>Yet in spite of the fact that both of those candidates are fiscally irresponsible we are stuck instead with Deval Patrick a man who was wholly incapable of governing effectively, who has backstabbed progressives when he should have worked with them (his budget cuts as we can plainly see are on the backs of the poor, the mentally ill, and the elderly-the same targets of Republican cuts, he has also sided with graft and hackery with Wilkerson and Walsh and against progressives like Sonia Chang Diaz),whose only revenue idea was a tax on the poor that would have drastically increased crime and hurt the surrounding community (casino’s). Who has massively screwed up an ambitious plan regarding education reform that will now empower the teachers unions. And he has alienated nearly every potential supporter in the state.
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p>His primary opponent has never served in government either and seems to have few original/feasible ideas to solving the problem. Is only general election opponent is a candidate that while having good ideas is still committed to a party that is more concerned with trivialities than substance. And any other minor party candidate will surely be worse than the Greens (Con, Libs to the right of Cahill/Baker).
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p>My parents and I seriously discussed these prospects at the kitchen table and we all concluded we might just sit out the Governors race or write in Mickey Mouse.