Disability rights groups sue NY office of MRDD for access to patient records

From the Times-Union in NY:

ALBANY, N.Y. — Two disability-rights groups are suing the state Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities after being denied access to patient records. The groups contend they are entitled to the information because of their official watchdog roles.

Niskayuna's O.D. Heck Center is one of the facilities involved in the lawsuit. Last summer, advocates attempted to view the records of residents who may have been warehoused there when they should have been moved to less restrictive group homes.

"Under state law, we should have complete access to all those records," said Bridgit Burke, director of Albany Law School's Civil Rights and Disability Law Clinic.

"We are one of the watchdogs that looks over organizations that are serving folks with developmental disabilities to make sure that abuse and neglect doesn't go unchecked," added Burke.

Another organization, Disability Advocates, is also participating in the suit, which seeks both medical records and related material such as files documenting the day-to-day care of the approximately 50 people at O.D. Heck.

The group sought the records, Burke said, after an administrator at the center — who has since left — confided that some residents have lived at O.D. Heck since the 1970s and might be better off in community-based homes.

"Increasingly, people go to community residences. The question was, were people getting stuck at O.D. Heck?" said Burke.

The facility's spokesman, Herm Hill, said he couldn't comment due to the pending litigation, which will be heard in state Supreme Court in Albany County.

"Even the administrator couldn't say why they had been there," Burke said. She doesn't believe there is a conscious effort to keep people at O.D. Heck, but argues there isn't a clear-cut path or procedure for moving people out of such institutions.

The Albany Law School clinic has a federally funded contract to monitor developmental centers.

"We exist for a reason," Burke said. She hopes the suit will remind OMRDD that watchdog groups have the right to review records at the agency.

"There is a desire on the part of the agency not to have transparency," Burke said.

This isn't the first time OMRDD has been criticized for secrecy. Bethlehem resident Michael Carey, who pushed for a law which gives parents more access to information, has remained critical of OMRDD.

Carey and his wife Lisa demanded greater transparency after their autistic son Jonathan died in 2007 after an O.D. Heck worker restrained the boy during an outing.

On Tuesday, Carey pointed to a case earlier this month in which Ricky W. Sousie, a supervisor at an OMRDD facility in Hudson Falls, was indicted for an alleged 2006 sexual assault against a 54-year-old resident. It was the latest example of problems, Carey said, that came to light after police became involved.

Carey believes OMRDD's commissioner, Diana Jones Ritter — who is also named in the Albany Law School suit — should step down.

Jones Ritter, in a prepared statement said, "Since the beginning of my administration two years ago, my No. 1 priority has been to provide quality services and to enhance the health and safety of the people within OMRDD's system of care."

OMRDD runs facilities or oversees privately operated homes that care for about 125,000 people across the state.