The future of the state's largest residential facility for profoundly disabled adults is increasingly uncertain as state regulators again warned that they intend to cut off essential federal funding for the Rosewood Center because its staff has repeatedly failed to protect residents involved in violent episodes.
The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene also issued an immediate, month-long ban last week on all new admissions at the 300-acre campus in Owings Mills.
At a news conference today, advocates for the disabled plan to use the state's report and reiterate their call to close Rosewood for good.
"These findings and others detailed in this report demand leadership from state officials to finally bring an end to segregating individuals into this large, expensive congregate setting," the Maryland Disability Law Center concludes in a report provided to The Sun and set to be released publicly in Annapolis today. "Our call to close Rosewood joins the demands from others across the state, with [at] least 16 advocacy groups taking a stand on closure."
The announcement comes after a series of state investigative reports and warning letters this month found that time and time again, employees at the state-run facility for the extremely and chronically disabled knew about - but failed to investigate fully - abuse of residents by other residents as well as residents who harmed themselves.
Incidents included a 22-year-old patient with a long history of violence who was allowed out of the sight of a staff member to steal a knife on a field trip and stab another Rosewood resident in December. In another case, a woman removed all of her toenails, but Rosewood workers didn't inform a doctor of the self-mutilation for more than two weeks.
Rosewood caretakers repeatedly failed to prevent patient-on-patient violence and neglected to create or modify residents' plans for effective care, according to the health department's report. Of the 77 reports of violence or neglect at Rosewood lodged between October and January and reviewed by state investigators, staff members failed to take any corrective action in 26 cases.
"It was determined that the facility failed to ensure that individuals are free from abuse, neglect and mistreatment and that the potential for harm existed," state health department investigators concluded in a Jan. 18 report.
