NCSA Letter Opposing Pennsylvania's Plan to Close State Developmental Centers — October 2019
Letter | October 7, 2019
To: Governor Tom Wolf, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Re: Opposition to the Planned Closure of Polk and White Haven State Developmental Centers
October 7, 2019
Dear Governor Wolf:
The National Council on Severe Autism (NCSA) is strongly opposed to your plan to close the Polk and White Haven State Developmental Centers.
The autism spectrum is broad, and we represent the growing number of families whose loved ones are significantly intellectually disabled, with minimal or no language. They often suffer from medical comorbidities, most commonly seizures, sleep disorders, and gastrointestinal problems. And many of them exhibit extraordinarily dangerous behaviors that pose grave risks to themselves and/or their caregivers, including aggression, self-injury, elopement, screaming, property destruction, and pica.
Closing DCs only provides the illusion of savings: supporting a population that requires intensive, round-the-clock care will impose costs no matter where they are placed. In closing DCs, prohibiting the building of new congregate settings, and drastically reducing the number of Consolidated Waivers — the only Waiver that pays for residential services — the Commonwealth is placing a stranglehold on viable options for this very challenging population.
The Office of Developmental Programs may report savings, temporarily. But in reality all it is doing is shifting those costs: to aging parents unqualified to provide the necessary level of care; to siblings who must give up their work; to law enforcement, whose officers may be called multiple times a week to respond to violent outbursts; to hospitals, where it has become common for severely autistic adults to languish in emergency rooms because of a lack of safe and appropriate placements. Even if that shift is sustainable in the short term, what happens when those placements can no longer manage, or when parents die? With no Developmental Centers to provide the level of care required, our most vulnerable citizens will be forced into grossly inappropriate — yet just as costly, or more so — settings, such as nursing homes or psychiatric wards.
The Supreme Court's Olmstead decision explicitly affirms the need for a wide range of residential options to reflect the diverse needs of this population: "nothing in the ADA or its implementing regulations condones termination of institutional settings for persons unable to handle or benefit from community settings." This is exactly what is happening in Pennsylvania right now.
The National Council on Severe Autism urges you to reconsider your proposal and preserve State Developmental Centers for those individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities who require acute and lifelong care.
Very truly yours,
Jill Escher, President
