[Note: There are many Fernald League members who continue to believe the Fernald Center will not close on June 30 and who plan to file appeals of the transfers of their wards. I'm only saying that the June 30 date is the date by which the administration has stated that Fernald will be closed.]
Leave it, by the way, to Gary Blumenthal, president of the Association of Developmental Disabilities Providers, to disparage the Greene pool as a “separate but equal facility,” in an online comment to Abraham's piece.
You really have to twist and trivialize the Civil Rights struggle in this country to imply that maintaining state-operated facilities for persons with developmental disabilities is equivalent to requiring separate facilities for blacks and whites. It's comments like that that understandably infuriate families with residents at Fernald and the other state Intermediate Care Facilities.
Kudos to Abraham and The Globe for recognizing the importance of the Greene pool and all it represents.
The Greene Pool is an incredibly valuable asset. Its a jewel. Kudos to Abraham & the Globe for helping to make more people aware of just how many people use Fernald’s facilities. Anyone who reads the Globe now knows that hundreds of people (not just the residents) use this great pool. Those in favor of closing Fernald like to keep that fact a secret-it supports their argument.
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p>The cat was initially let out of the bag when the closure of the Tufts Dental Clinic at Fernald was announced. This was immediately reversed when the Legislature finally realized that 2200 people receive specialized dental care there and there was no place else for them to go for this specialized treatment without packing a lunch and making a day of it. A really big secret that those in favor of closing Fernald wanted kept under wraps for the same reason.
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p>Anyone can understand numbers like hundreds and thousands. They are attention getters that scream that Fernald is necessary and must be preserved.
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p>These numbers clearly demonstrate that the impact of closing Fernald reaches far beyond the residents that call it home. Thousands use the services and facilities available at Fernald. Its about time people are finally getting the real facts–not just the misinformation put out by those who have the most gain from its closure–which is the group Mr. Blumenthal represents.
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p>As for Mr. Blumenthal’s comments, leave it to him to try to say something negative about the Greene Pool. His comment was an over-reaction to another comment that had nothing to do with the words he mentioned “segregation” or “equal but separate”. Actually the comments are quite revealing. Who else would even attempt to “spin” what this pool does for this little boy and the hundreds of other disabled people that use it into a negative?
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p>His comment was totally lacking in any sort of compassion for this little boy and the prospect of his life without this pool. He failed to at least acknowledge that Greene is the only one readily accessible to this little boy, finding another pool that meets all his needs would be an unnecessary hardship, it is his only source of physical exercise, it allows him to escape his physical limitations for a few hours and gives him great pleasure in his life.
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p>This disabled child needs the Greene Pool. The hundreds of other disabled people who use it need it too. Who could deny this little boy or these disabled people a few hours of pleasure in their lives?
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p>To quote another commenter to this article, Mr. Blumenthal’s only problem with the Greene Pool is that it is located at Fernald. If it was located anyplace else he wouldn’t have even bothered to make a comment.
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I get it.
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p>Closing the Greene pool is not just stupid and mean – it would be tragic and cost an enormous amount in lost treatment modalities.
Take care of the kids, the old, and the people who can’t help themselves. After that, screw them all if the money ain’t there. Take the money from the drug testing account at Dept. of Probation.
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p>Question, are there other pools like this or programs where pool times are set aside for people such as this?
why aren’t there more of these. Id rather see more of these and alot of othert programs I see for nin-disabled adults
Forest Gump could RUN. Running fast was always a tricky thing for me; never something I mastered. Too many mechanical issues with odd and missing parts. But I get where I have to go anyway, so when folk ask how I am donig MY favorite reply is “fundamentally operational”.
The dental program. Now the pool. The unique facilites that CANNOT BE replicated in ‘mainstreamed’ residences.
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p>A monument is carved one chip at a time, David. Don’t give up, and know that we are rooting for you – because it could be us, too.
As you say, these are unique facilities that cannot be replicated. When they’re gone, there will be no way of getting them back.
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p>If nothing else, at least these posts and the comments to them will remain as a virtual testiment to the existence of Fernald and the process that was used to close it.
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p>By this measure, the Fernald (and other like places) are an embarrassment and an insult to the people stuck in them, who need to be treated as human beings, not “wards” to be shunted out of sight. They belong in the community, like the rest of us. This is official state policy, long honored in the breach.
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p>Massachusetts, the most liberal of states by some measures, is woefully behind the rest of the country (and the world) in this regard.
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p>Gary Blumenthal is right on the money. This IS a civil rights issue!
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p>PP, you are right, too. It could be us next. I have a disability, though I don’t need a special swimming pool. I do need certain accommodations, however, and I don’t want to be told I have to go to a special place because I don’t fit in with the “typical” world.
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p>Shades of Rand Paul!
Sometimes I prefer to have a special place to go to, and not to have to deal with those who are stronger, faster, and often less than kind.
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p>I needed camps where my children’s needs were met, with a ration of care that kept them safe.
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p>We are not all cogs and widgets that need to roll down the same assembly line.
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p>Some of us need more space.
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p>Some of us flourish with less noise.
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p>Dyspraxia has a different pace for learning, and needs activities many do not…and craves them, too.
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p>Having “one size for all” is not freedom, but a different kind of straight jacket.
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p>My first born was dyspraxic; so I know. Several professionals with credentials from wonderful schools like Harvard or at Children’s Hospital told us he could not be raised at home, was not educable. This year he finished his college degree and I will for ever be grateful to Jane Kumar and the folk at Occupational Therapy Associates for having a special place where he could learn what he needed.
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p>What you criticize as a ghetto can be, for some, a magic garden and place of healing.
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p>Again: “One size fits all” is a Procrustes straight jacket.
…of the Scout helping the little old lady across the street, even though she didn’t WANT to cross the street.
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p>There IS a place for special facilities; they have fallen on hard times due to a rigid belief in mainstreaming.
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p>Segregation is enforced – not allowing a person who can and/or wishes to participate. I had a hard time being allowed in public schools with my disability. THAT was segregation. But allowing people with different conditions to voluntarily take treatment or use facilities isn’t segregation together, and telling them they don’t know what’s best for them is no way to win a merit badge.
runs a group whose members stand to profit mightily from closing the state-run facilities. Can you say “conflict of interest?”
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p>Now let me ask you this, Michael. If these facilities are “an embarrassment” and that all people belong in the community – why is there no emnity directed at the PRIVATE vendor-run residential campuses, like Beverly Farms, Perkins, et al?
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p>http://www.beverlyfarm.org/?gc…
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p>Really, if this is about a “community first” philosophy regardless of the severity of need or disability, why is no one screaming about Beverly Farms?
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p>Because we both know that it’s not about a philosphy. The wealthy have always had the money to give their disabled loved ones the best care, and sometimes that’s in a centralized service delivery model like Beverly Farms. Ted Kennedy’s sister was in such a facility. Unfortunately, the poor and middle class have had to rely on the state to help provide for their disabled kin.
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p>These closures are not, and have never been about a “community first” philosphy. This is about privitization, and “vendor first” gimmee-the-contracts” policy, taking decent paying jobs away from state workers, while the vendors pay their help a pittance and don’t provide adequate healthcare:
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p>http://qualitycarewatch.org/in…
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p>And if the “community” is such a panacea – why did the DMR comdemn a Vinfen house in Danvers earlier this year? This is a house run by the guy (Gary Lamson) who makes over $300K a year. That’s more than the GOVERNOR.
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p>http://www.wickedlocal.com/dan…
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p>Just because your needs have been met successfully (as a disabled man,) in the fragmented service delivery system of the community, doesn’t mean we should shoe-horn fragile people into inappropriate placements. If we accept that the elderly and others can need centralized service delivery, than I am at a loss as to why we would deny similiar services from people with intellectual disabilities. It seems…discriminatory.
You condemn Fernald and the other state ICFs as “an embarrassment” and an “insult” to the people living there.
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p>Have you ever been to Fernald and seen the residents there and how they are treated? You say they are not treated as human beings. Have you ever been there to witness their treatment? You say they are “shunted out of sight.” Have you ever been there to witness that?
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p>I don’t think you really have any idea what goes on at Fernald. If you think you do, I ask again, have you been there?
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p>Fernald provides high-level care to people with the most profound levels of mental retardation in the state. There is as much, if not more, community involvement with Fernald and its residents as with any community-based group home.
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p>Go there and see for yourself. We’ll be happy to show you.