I stumbled upon this article today about a senator in Connecticut calling for a federal probe into the conditions of privately-run group homes. According to the article, there have been an alarming number of deaths in recent years in his state from abuse, neglect, or medical errors, and he wants to instigate a national investigation into the issue.
Having just talked in class recently about the condition of large institutions in the last century, I was not expecting to see an article like this pop up in my current news feed. The sense I had was that such widespread abuses were largely a thing of the past, though of course abuses still occur.
I cannot tell if this is evidence that privitization of services with public funds leads to valuing profits and "the bottom line" over quality of care, or if the good news is that the public funding is what seems to be prompting the investigation into abuses in the group homes. I can say that the debate over public or private funding of services for the disabled is disheartening. Without proper free support, how is a person with a disability supposed to engage in modern culture in such a way that allows them to not be poor? And if they are poor, how can they avoid abuse and neglect in the name of profit? We haven't been able to work out solutions for non-disabled people in poverty, so why should I expect that those in need of special services would get the care and recognition they deserve?
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