From a much longer article in the Houston Press
Every day she comes here to be with him — to wash his wiry hair and clip his yellowed nails and rub his calloused feet. The boy has no control over his body. His head rolls from side to side, his eyes dart from one thing to another and drool pools out of his mouth. His name is Haseeb, and he is 34.
He wasn't always like this. For most of his life, he has been profoundly mentally retarded, but there was a time when he could sing and dance and communicate with his mother, in broken English and Urdu. There was a time when he ate cheeseburgers with his family and bopped his head to his brother's hip-hop.
And then something happened.
Six years ago, not far from where Chishty sits, a nurse's aide found Haseeb in bed, soaking in his own blood and urine. No one at the school could explain what happened. For six months he lay in intensive care, suffering from massive internal injuries that triggered toxic shock and then paralysis. His mother insisted someone at the school was to blame — she had seen a bruise in the shape of a footprint near his groin on the morning they found him. But no one had reported any abuse, so her claims went ignored.
For two and a half years, she told this story to anyone who would listen, and then the unexpected happened. Kevin Miller, a former caregiver at the school, admitted he had abused Haseeb in a drug-induced rage, punching and kicking him more than a dozen times. He said his supervisors knew about the attack and helped him cover it up. Even more alarming, he said abuse at the school was rampant. He knew his confession, which he first offered at a drug rehab clinic in Houston, might send him to prison, but he felt it was worth the risk if it sparked reforms.
More than three years have passed since then, and none of the changes Miller envisioned have taken place. Yet largely thanks to Chishty's efforts, her son has become the face of a movement. For the first time in nearly a decade, advocacy groups for the mentally retarded are pushing for the closure of the 13 state schools in Texas. These facilities, which house nearly 5,000 people, represent the largest institutionalization of mentally retarded in the nation. The alternatives — smaller, community-based group homes — are cheaper, safer and more humane, mental health rights advocates say. The trend across the country is toward this model of care, and other states, including California and New York, have either shuttered their institutions or are in the process of doing so.
Jeff Garrison-Tate, who heads Community Now, an Austin-based advocacy group, cites the Chishty tragedy as a defining example of why Texas should close all its state schools. "Haseeb is the tip of the iceberg," he says. "By their very nature, these are places where abuse is rife to occur."
1 comment:
There are other types of abuse other than physical abuse. I worked at a group home in NYC(16th St)with the DD population for about a year. Sometime this spring we noticed that certain items would turn up missing. At first we dismissed it as simple carelesssness among staff. But as the thefts became more pervasive we realised that it was an "inside" job.
At first, it was only a few DVDs but later on food(large amounts) from the pantry started to disaear. At one point I opened the freezer and found a single slab of meat. Most stsff members were suspicous of a particular employee. For good reason, she was a compulsive liar and a known thief. Then the keys turned up missing and everybody pinned it on her.
However, later on I was told that it was the manager or the facility who orchestrated the thefts. For whatever reason I don't know. But since he and this employee was sexusally involved I was not surprised. Maybe he set her up to be the "fall guy" since he knew she would be an easy target for blame. We must carefullly vet those who work with the DD population. It's of the upmost importance.
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