After a 10-year legal battle, a federal judge mandated that Florida must take action to prevent children with “complex” medical conditions from being placed in nursing homes.
TALLAHASSEE , Fla. — On Friday, after a 10-year legal battle, a federal judge mandated that Florida must take action to prevent children with “complex” medical conditions from being placed in nursing homes. Instead, the state must assist these children in receiving care within their family homes or communities.U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks, siding with the U.S.
“Those who are institutionalized are spending months, and sometimes years of their youth isolated from family and the outside world,” Middlebrooks wrote. “They don’t need to be there. I am convinced of this after listening to the evidence, hearing from the experts, and touring one of these facilities myself. If provided adequate services, most of these children could thrive in their own homes, nurtured by their own families.
Middlebrooks wrote that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires the state to provide services in the most “integrated setting appropriate” to meet the needs of people with disabilities. He also cited a major 1999 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said “undue institutionalization” of people with disabilities is a form of discrimination.
Middlebrooks, who held a two-week trial in May, also criticized the state’s oversight of managed-care organizations and ordered a monitor to help carry out the order.
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