Punishment For Blowing Bubbles in Milk at Disabled Day Center Kills 7 Year Old Girl

[Truth2Tell]

http://www.disaboom.com/Blogs/disabled_politico/archive/2008/12/08/wisconsin-disability-rights-group-seeks-ban-on-restraints.aspx">Wisconsin Disability Rights Group Seeks Ban on Restraints

Angellika Arndt was seven years old when she died at a Wisconsin day treatment center in 2006. She had been in a prone restraint control hold, where she lay face-down on the floor with one person lying across her legs and another lying sideways across her lower back, for twenty-three minutes when she stopped struggling. At first, the clinic staff thought she had fallen asleep, which she often did after being restrained, but when after five minutes she hadn't moved, they found her lips had turned blue. Arndt was taken to the hospital, but died the next day.



Disability Rights Wisconsin released a report on Arndt's death last week that describes not only what happened the day she died, but her entire history at the clinic. On the first day she was admitted that April, she spent five hours either in seclusion or in restraints. During the month she spent at the clinic, she spent at least 14 hours restrained and 20 hours locked in "time-out" rooms. Many of her restraint sessions were more than two hours long.

<snip>

While DRW is pleased about the changes that have been enacted, they are pushing for one more change to occur. There is no ban on prone restraint in Wisconsin, even after Arndt's death, because the state department of health argues that restraint is often warranted and necessary for the safety of health workers. Karen Timberlake, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, stated that " department will continue to work with our partners to issue additional guidance on the dangers of the use of seclusion and restraint."

Disability Rights Wisconsin and the Coalition Against Institutionalized Child Abuse, however, allege that Arndt was restrained for offenses such as blowing bubbles in her milk and not sitting still in time-out and that a blanket ban of prone restraint is necessary to prevent further abuse. They worry that it will take another death to enact a restraint ban.

http://www.disaboom.com/Blogs/disabled_politico/archive/2008/12/08/wisconsin-disability-rights-group-seeks-ban-on-restraints.aspx">More...

It seems like every time you turn around it's to see another story of abuse or neglect of the most needy in our society. No doubt particular changes in regulations and laws are called for. But it seems like the problem evidenced by this story is deeper than just the law can address.

Here's another one from just today:

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/breaking/story/369795.html">Restraint at mental hospital decried

24-year-old man was strapped facedown for more than an hour in room at the Butner facility.

RALEIGH Internal records show workers at a state mental hospital in Butner strapped a patient to a bed facedown for more than an hour this week, violating proper procedures and endangering the patient.

<snip>

But several people knowledgeable about operations inside state hospitals said Friday that the staff might have been attempting to punish the mentally ill man by restraining him in an uncomfortable position.

The practice can cause fear and panic in the person being strapped down, whose vision would be limited. It can also make it harder for a patient to breath and can exacerbate the risk of heart problems.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/breaking/story/369795.html">More...

It seems like we need a systematic correction of our cultural priorities in America. I hope that our somewhat new political climate will help usher in some needed changes in people's hearts.

It's easy to find tons of these stories with the Google:

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/breaking/story/369795.html">Improper restraint also has contributed to several patient deaths in state mental hospitals in recent years.

Janella Williams, 35, suffocated at Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro in 2006 after more than a dozen staff members held her down on the floor. Failing to recognize that she was in distress, they then strapped her into restraints for nearly an hour before anyone noticed she was no longer breathing.

Two years earlier, Delores Ingram Franklin, 47, died while in restraints at Cherry after a nurse gave her too many injections of an anti psychotic drug intended to calm her.

Jimmy Clifton Davis, 52, died at Dix in 2003 after he was beaten by another patient and then placed in restraints for four hours despite acute rib fractures and other internal injuries. An autopsy found large amounts of fluid that had hemorrhaged into his chest cavity.

Broughton Hospital in Morganton lost its federal accreditation for much of the last year after Anthony Dawayne Lowery, 27, was tackled by staff members who saw him rummaging through a dining room garbage can. He suffocated while being restrained on his back, with staff members sitting on his limbs and chest.

So, what's up with this?

[KillCapitalism]

1. Restraining a kid for that?!?!?!

Crazy, wouldn't a 5-minute time out at most be more appropriate?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

2. I didn't get half that for pouring paint in a girls hair in grade 4

I would probably get tazered for that today,

[azurnoir]

5. Is blowing bubbles in milk a punishable "offense" at all?

I mean I have 4 kids 3 grown and punishing any them for that never occurred.

[Triana]

3. this reminds me of guantanimo bay...

..after that addictive feeling of power and control over another person that prison guards there got - after their initial revulsion of doing such things to another human - took over. Also like at gitmo - the "inmates" at these mental institutions are considered less than human and are treated as such. Couple that with the aforementioned power addiction and you have minutely human rights abuses and deaths in the making at such institutions.

Without STRICT laws and oversight (including unannounced inspections and sting operations) regarding how these "detainees" can and can NOT be treated, it will continue. Because that's human nature - and unless you make it hurt the people DOING it more than it hurts the people they're doing it TO - it won't stop. What I mean by that is firing anyone who abuses a resident of a mental institution and making sure they never work in such a place again. Too STRICT?

Nope.

Sounds like any laws, regulation, and oversight of these institutions - along with others such as elderly homes and hospices - are non-existent - since mental patients are just considered human trash - just like old and poor people are in this country.

Enact the laws. ENFORCE them. INSPECT the facilities. Or it won't stop.

This is a MORAL and a human rights issue. Will the US deal with it properly and morally?

Don't hold your breath waiting.

[sasquatch]

4. Sick fucks

[enigmatic]

6. this makes me sick

That poor little girl...

[Hannah Bell]

7. what's a 7-yr old in "day treatment" for, anyway? why would it take 2

adults to restrain a 7-year old girl? totally nuts.

[Jamastiene]

8. There is something major wrong in all of these pictures.

"There is no ban on prone restraint in Wisconsin, even after Arndt's death, because the state department of health argues that restraint is often warranted and necessary for the safety of health workers."

A seven year old? If they cannot handle a seven year old without two grown adults ganging up on her and smothering the kid to death, there is a problem.

Give me a fucking break. It's abuse and murder, plain and simple.

[Thegonagle]

9. That's right. This is outrageous.