A Day of Defiance at Five Group Homes

For David Battraw, paralyzed and strapped to a respirator for life, Thursday was a day of uncharacteristic defiance.

He parked his wheelchair in the driveway of his group home in Northridge with other wheelchair-bound friends and waited for a caravan of ambulances and government sedans to arrive. As a cluster of Medi-Cal officials, registered nurses and ambulance attendants drew near, he quietly but firmly told them they were wasting their time.

“I feel safe here,” the 22-year-old said. “And I’m not moving.”

It was a statement the government contingent heard over and over as they attempted to remove 19 residents from five group homes in the San Fernando Valley. After recent unfavorable health and Fire Department inspections, Medi-Cal officials decided that the residents’ safety was threatened.

Medi-Cal officials warned the residents that the state would cut off government payments to the group homes if they did not leave. The homes primarily care for young accident victims confined to wheelchairs who breathe through respirators.

“Nobody ever likes to do it,” said Darryl Nixon, administrator of the Los Angeles Medi-Cal field office, who politely questioned each patient. “It’s very unpleasant. We felt it’s for the best.”

But the Department of Health Services’ decision upset residents, parents and health care workers at the residences operated by New Start Homes Inc. in Chatsworth.

One father angrily engaged embarrassed-looking officials in debate in the foyer of one of the homes. A mother of a 29-year-old woman paralyzed during a water skiing accident wept bitterly on the sidewalk. Some residents looked terrified and answered Medi-Cal representatives with terse one- and two-word replies.

When the sweep through the five homes ended at lunchtime, only three residents had left. All were children and two were wards of the court. They were taken to Childrens Hospital.

The youngest to leave was Guadalupe Flores, a 3-year-old wearing diapers under a frilly red dress and wriggling her red-painted toenails. Over the kitchen phone, her father gave the state permission to take her.

Guadalupe looked frightened when someone lifted her onto an ambulance stretcher as several people closed in to see how she was faring. Someone scrambled to get her orange-haired cloth doll. The little girl, who breathes with a respirator and communicates with 100 or so finger signs, looked at a nurse’s aide as she traced her finger down her cheek.

The sign represented tears, said the nurse’s aide, Paula Harris, who replied softly, “I know you’re sad.”

But tears couldn’t prevent the move.

Improperly Staffed

In a series of inspections in August, health surveyors found that the homes were improperly staffed and did not meet nutritional standards. Over the past two years, a few residents had lost alarming amounts of weight, including one woman who shed 20% of her weight in three months, according to state officials. One patient wandered a mile away and was found in the middle of a busy street. Another patient was rushed to the hospital after someone mistakenly had irrigated the patient’s bladder with disinfectant, officials said.

Then the Fire Department determined that the homes did not have enough emergency exits, said Bud Pate, a Los Angeles County supervising health facilities surveyor. In addition, some of the wiring was faulty.

Residents of the five homes said they would stay to find out whether a Superior Court judge would intercede Friday.

New Start owner Mary Williams said she has asked the court to block Medi-Cal from cutting off funding to her homes. Williams, a rehabilitation nurse, had little to say Thursday.

“It is very emotional, very difficult,” she said.

Health officials acknowledged that residents would rather stay at New Start than at a hospital, which is the only option most of them would have. Unless they can be cared for at the home of their parents or guardian, there are no other such group homes in the city that are licensed to accept them.

‘No-Win Situation’

“It’s a horrible situation. It’s a no-win situation,” Pate said. “We did not take this action lightly. We understood the patients in many cases were better off there than they were in hospitals.”

“There are really no patients who said, ‘God, I’ve got to get out of this place--it’s horrible.’ They seem to like it, but they understand there are problems,” Pate added.

Residents said they would lose their freedom in a hospital, their friends and their educational opportunities; some attend Cal State Northridge and Pierce College.

“I promised myself never to go to a hospital unless it was serious,” said D. J. Jackson, a 21-year-old college student holding vigil on his driveway. “I do not like hospitals. If you spent nine years of your life in a hospital, you’d learn not to like them either.”