A Florida clinic that has been the subject of hundreds of abuse and neglect complaints and was once accused of treating its patients “like garbage” is battling to keep D.C. residents in its care, The Examiner has learned.
D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles has promised to have all of the District’s residents out of the Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation by September. The clinic is fighting back, saying that the District isn’t up to treating the eight seriously injured and ill patients from the city that it cares for.
“That’s a lot of baloney,” Nickles told The Examiner.
The city is paying hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars per resident each year for patients in the Florida clinic.
Clinic spokesman
The Florida clinic has been accused of abusing and neglecting hundreds of patients for decades. Last year, University Legal Services, a congressionally appointed watchdog for D.C.’s disabled population, issued a scathing report that said residents of the institute complained of being treated “like garbage.”
On Tuesday, the Government Accountability Office issued a damning report on private clinics like the Florida Institute that used restraints and other “aversive” therapy on vulnerable children.
The District has spent hundreds of millions of dollars annually to ship children to such clinics and schools around the country with little or no follow-up on how they’re faring.
For parents of disabled or ill kids, a remote placement “is the most stressful situation they can find themselves in,” said Councilwoman Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3.
“Usually the kids can’t speak for themselves, and you can’t be present,” Cheh said. “It’s a constant tension, approaching a nightmare, if you think that somehow they’re being abused.”
