Alabama advocates ask for closure of developmental center

From the Tuscaloosa News in Alabama:

TUSCALOOSA -- An advocacy group for people with disabilities is calling on the state to close Partlow Developmental Center, which it criticizes in a report to be released Monday.

“We are advocating that it should close. Besides just conditions of the buildings, there is a very, very high cost to operating the facility,” said Ellen Gillespie, director of the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program.

Partlow, which sits on a 250-acre campus on University Boulevard, has an annual budget of more than $50 million. It employs 574 people and serves 197 clients, according to information from the Alabama Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation.

“There are a number of reasons why it should close, but our report will show why it is no longer a feasible way and why it is not a very good quality of life [for its clients],” Gillespie said.

In 2006, Partlow employees criticized the agency, saying they were at risk of being injured by some of its mentally ill patients. That same year, two $5 million lawsuits alleged the sexual assault of two mentally retarded male clients at Partlow. Those cases were settled out of court for an undisclosed amount in 2007, said Birmingham attorney Tommy James, who represented the two men.

ADAP, which works to help protect the rights of Alabamians with disabilities, will hold a news conference on the steps of the state Capitol at 10 a.m. Monday, to give details of the report and reiterate its recommendation to close Partlow. The study will also be published on ADAP’s Web site.

In a pre-emptive response to the upcoming report, the Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation announced its own news conference Monday afternoon at Partlow, at which time the agency will give the media a tour of the facilities. The department will have no comment until that time, said Department of Mental Health spokesman John Zeigler.

“We are trying to appropriately wait on their remarks before we comment,” Zeigler said.

He also declined to comment on whether the department had received a copy of ADAP’s report. Partlow is the state’s only residential facility for people with cognitive disorders and mental retardation.

For many years, the facility housed only patients with mental retardation. In 2003, patients with mental illnesses were added to the population, under a 2003 state consolidation plan that closed developmental centers in Decatur, Wetumpka and Daphne.

At that time, patients in those facilities were either moved into local community center homes, released to their families or were moved to Partlow under state care.

Before the consolidation, Partlow served about 159 patients.

Many Partlow clients now live in single-story homes, some sharing apartments with four or five roommates. Some residents live in dormlike rooms.

When the facility was founded in 1923 by Dr. William D. Partlow, then superintendent of Bryce Hospital and Searcy Hospital, patients were housed in a dormlike atmosphere, with tight rows of uniform metal beds in large rooms. By the late 1960s, more than 2,500 residents lived there.