Advocates march to save camp for disabled children in South Carolina

From WACH-TV in South Carolina:

Hundreds of disability advocates rallied at the statehouse March 4. They're protested more than 85-million dollars in budget cuts over the last six months,
which have resulted in drastic service cuts.

Among them, a small Sumter program that's a big deal to the community.

It's a summer camp for young people with disabilities. Advocates say Camp Burnt Gin is too important to lose.

Passionate voices chanted a compelling request as supporters proudly held signs, as they make their way to the statehouse. People marched while saying "save our camp," hoping to catch state lawmakers' attention. They want Camp Burnt Gin fully funded.

The camp cost the State Department of Health and Environmental Control more than 200-thousand dollars each year. When DHEC cut its budget, C.B.G. as campers call it, became expendable.

"We can't let the camp die. There's no way, there's too many things go on there," says former camper Charles Hall.

He's spent his life in a wheelchair but says he didn't know another person like him until he went to Camp Burnt Gin - a place where kids are free from their disabilities.

"As soon as I went to Burnt Gin, a weight was lifted off my shoulders," says Hall.

C.B.G. is the only place where disabled children can camp in South Carolina.

"It's not just a summer camp for fun, It's a quality of life that gives campers special opportunities to participate in activities they never have opportunities to participate in otherwise," says advocate Allen Bailey.

Supporters hope Wednesday's march and rally motivates lawmakers to leave Burnt Gin be.

DHEC and private donors will fund the C.B.G. this summer. Advocates want people to write lawmakers asking them to support the camp for future sessions.

Casting call for new reality show in NYC featuring blind people

From KPI:

KPI, an Emmy-winning production company in New York City, is looking for characters for an exciting new reality television series.

“Sightless in the City” will be an insightful and positive look at how blind people go about their busy lives in New York City.

We're looking for a range of people of all ages and races, including families, adults, children, young professionals. We want characters that have active lives, big personalities and a positive attitude towards their disability. They should have the confidence to be around the cameras and the desire to tell their story.

We will film daily life, whether that is at home, at work, buying groceries, taking the kids to school or riding the subway. We might follow other characters as they pursue big dreams, such as training for a marathon, planning a wedding or attending college.

We are also keen to speak to families with young children where a parent, child or several family members are blind.

For more information, please contact Joanne at jazern@kpitv.com

Obese teens have same risks as smokers

From The NY Times:

Likening obesity’s risks to those of smoking, a large European study spanning decades has found that young men who were overweight at age 18 were as likely to die by 60 as light smokers, while obese teens, like heavy smokers, were at double the risk of dying early.

While obesity is linked to a slew of health problems, the new findings fly in the face of numerous recent studies showing that people who are merely overweight may not be at higher risk of premature death than those of normal weight.

The new study, published in this week’s British Medical Journal, tracked the death rates of 45,920 Swedish men over 38 years. The researchers found that men who were obese when they signed up for service in the Swedish Army in 1969 and 1970 were at more than twice the risk of dying by age 60, compared with those who were of normal weight. That is about the same increase in risk faced by normal-weight recruits who smoked half a pack of cigarettes or more a day.

Recruits who were overweight but did not smoke were about one-third more likely to die prematurely, an increase in risk about the same as that for men of normal weight who smoked up to 10 cigarettes a day, the study found.

“We know that health behaviors are established early on in life,” Martin Neovius, the study’s first author and a postdoctoral fellow at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, said in an e-mail interview. He said the message for teenagers today was: “If you already are smoking, then smoking cessation combined with weight-maintenance counseling would probably be a good idea.”

Some experts, however, said that despite the breadth of the new study, the findings might overstate the dangers of being overweight. They pointed out that researchers knew only the weight of the men when they signed up for military service at 18.

And since most people gain weight as they age, the men who were overweight in their teens might well have gone on to become obese as adults, so their deaths might actually reflect the risk of obesity, not of being overweight earlier in life, said Dr. David F. Williamson, a visiting professor at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University who has studied the effects of obesity on health.

Smoking is widely acknowledged to be the single most important cause of preventable deaths and disease, he said.

“It’s fairly dramatic when you say something is as lethal as smoking,” Dr. Williamson said. “We know of very few things from a health perspective that are as lethal as smoking.”

Boy helped by U.S. charity struggles as an amputee back in Iraq

From CNN:

FALLUJA, Iraq -- "I can still hear her screams," says Mohammed Rasoul, (pictured) pointing to the sidewalk where he was sitting moments before a car bomb ripped through his street, killing his younger cousin and blowing off his right leg.

Mohammed, now 14, shudders as he stands on the street he grew up on in the war-torn city of Falluja. He admits he's afraid of another explosion.

CNN first met Mohammed two years ago. Every day, on crutches he would make the painstaking journey to his cousin's grave to water a small tree he planted next to it. She was just 6-years-old when she was killed in the car bombing on October 13, 2006.

Mohammed's story came to the attention of the Global Medical Relief Fund, a U.S.-based charity that helps children in war zones across the globe. Within months, Mohammed and his mother, Jinan Mohammed, were on their way to the United States, an experience that changed their lives and their perspectives.

"Before I went to America, the only America I knew was the one that harmed us, destroyed our homes and our lives," his mother says. "But when I went to America, I saw such kindness and humanity."

At the Shriners Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Mohammed was fitted with a prosthetic and for the first time in two years, his mother saw her son stand on his own. Her eyes immediately swelled with tears. She had not realized how tall Mohammed had gotten since the attack.

"My son's life changed," she says, back in Iraq nearly a year after her son's treatment. "He used to be so depressed. He would watch boys playing football, and he would be balancing on one leg on the sidelines. Now, he walks tall and proud."

When they came back to Iraq, there were celebrations for days. Everyone wanted to see Mohammed walk, and everyone wanted to know what America was like.

"Everyone was so happy," Mohammed remembers. "They were just staring at me because they couldn't believe that I was walking."

But having experienced life in America -- a life without fear -- coming back to Falluja, where most of the buildings still bear the scars of war, was a traumatic reality check. His overwhelming fear of another attack came back, even stronger than before.

"I am afraid," he says. "I feel that people are pointing at me saying, 'Look, he was in America!' And, you know, here people get killed for that."

He adds, "The worst day of my life was when I returned to Iraq."

Despite his fears, he still makes the daily trip to his cousin's grave. He waters the tree -- now just a twig after somebody snapped it in half -- and prays for his cousin's soul and for his own. His only wish is to leave his country and get past the painful memory of what he has endured.

"After what I suffered through here, no, I won't ever miss Iraq," he says. "This country is over. Iraq will never return as it was."

Mohammed has now returned again to the United States with the help of the Global Medical Relief Fund. He's outgrown his prosthetic and will soon be fitted with a new one.

Scott MacIntyre makes it into top 12 on "American Idol," accessible choreography featured

Scott MacIntyre, the visually impaired singer from Arizona, received enough votes to become a member of the top 12 "American Idol" contestants. It's a wonderful opportunity for millions of Americans to watch an accomplished blind person on the top-rated show.

In interesting choreography on the March 4 show, MacIntyre participated in a song and dance number with the other contestants, with the male contestants performing sitting down. To those who understand how a dance number with a blind person might be difficult to choreograph, it is wonderful to see a creative solution that, I think, made for something unique, rather than the same old dance routine for the 12 contestants. I am referring to it as "accessible choreography."

And there's going to have to be more of this accessible choreography as Scott MacIntyre performs with the others at the semi-finals. MacIntyre, who is an accomplished pianist, will reportedly have the chance to perform at the piano. That should gain him even more votes because he is so comfortable and talented at the piano.

Vermont woman who lost her arm due to botched injection wins Supreme Court case

From The AP:

MARSHFIELD, Vt. — Some people would give their right arm for $6 million. Diana Levine (pictured) would prefer the arm.

The 63-year-old musician, who won a $6.7 million award after a botched injection led to the amputation of her right arm, won a legal victory March 4 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the award against Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. Elated though she is, she'd still rather have her arm back — if only she
could.

"People say that: 'I would give my right arm.' They might even say `I would give my right arm for $6 million. I say I would give $6 million for MY right arm. I'd much rather have that," she said.

Levine, a professional musician, played guitar, piano and bass in a band and performed for children before her world fell apart in 2000. Suffering from a migraine headache, she went to a clinic in nearby Plainfield and was given painkillers and received an intramuscular injection of Phenergan.

When she still felt nauseated, she was given an "IV-push" of the drug, with the second injection accidentally puncturing an artery. Gangrene set in. Several weeks later, the arm was amputated.

"It basically took away my whole musical identity. I'd been playing music for 30 years, working with kids, writing songs. I played guitar, piano, bass in a rock band. I couldn't do any of those things anymore," she said Wednesday.

She lost more than her music and her livelihood.

Suddenly, what was routine became a challenge. The drawers in her 150-year-old farmhouse needed two hands to be opened. A left-hander, she still had one hand to use, but she relied on it to compensate so much, she injured it with overuse.

She couldn't shovel, or scrape ice off the windshield of her — a real handicap in her rural Vermont home, which is a half-mile up a dirt road and blanketed in snow from November to April. In summer, she can't open a window without help.

"Nobody, nobody understands what it's like to just operate with one hand. Everything you do requires two hands, even when you think you only need one," she said.

For years, Levine wondered whether drug maker Wyeth Pharmaceuticals would ever be held accountable.

On Wednesday, they were. In a 6-3 decision, the nation's highest court turned away Wyeth's claim that federal approval of Phenergan and its warning label should have shielded the company from lawsuits like Levine's.

Levine broke down in tears when a reporter called her with the news.

"My knees were buckling, and I was crying. The people that were here thought something horrible had happened. Until I said 'I'm so happy.' Then, they knew."

These days, she gets physical therapy for her remaining hand and welcomes the big-money award both for the vindication it represents and the practical obstacles it can help eliminate. For one thing, she'll build a garage.

And she'll buy a new prosthetic for her hand. She might even get her car adapted so she doesn't have to use her left hand to reach across the steering column to reach the ignition.

"Just in terms of my life, I have so much stress, being one-handed. This takes away from my economic stress and allows me to do things. ... This'll help get your car adapted, this'll help get a garage. This'll help get drawers you can open without two hands, this'll help you open your windows, this'll help you hire somebody to help you with your filing and help you with your lifting, so you don't hurt your (remaining) hand more," she said.

Levine, who lives alone, says she'll be depressed less often, now that the weight of the case no longer hovers over her life.

"It's very good for her spirit," said daughter Jassamine Levine, 26. "Both of our spirits were wibbling and wobbling, like `How can this be possible, that a company could value money and power over what's right?' It's pretty unfathomable.

"But the fact that the justice system worked, it's pretty impressive," she said.

Nebraska Children's Theatre includes kids with Down syndrome, other disabilities

From KETV in Nebraska:

OMAHA, Neb. -- It takes confidence to perform on stage. Acting demands imagination, concentration and determination: They’re qualities shared by the young students at a recent creative drama class held at Omaha’s Rose Children's Theatre.

“I always say you should never sell your child short,” said Mary McHale whose son Daniel just finished a series of classes at the Rose.

His mother’s efforts helped open the class to more than a dozen students who’ve never had the opportunity to take a drama class. They’re students with Down syndrome.

“They’re very uninhibited. Even though it may take them a little longer, the outcome is just as wonderful,” said drama instructor Anthony Abdullah.

During one of the final acting classes, eight students charged around the room, shooting pretend laser beams, reading lines and laughing. They helped create a six minute play about superheroes.

“Go,” Daniel instructed the other students if they missed a beat in picking up their lines during rehearsal. The fifth grade special needs student at Western Hills Elementary has a knack for memorizing plays.

“He knows everyone’s lines,” said Abdullah.

McHale helped the theatre staff find state grants to help pay for training and salaries for additional teachers to work with special needs students. As president of the Omaha Down Syndrome Parents Network, she personally held training sessions for the drama teachers.

McHale wanted to the staff to understand some of the challenges of children with Down syndrome.

As part of the training she had the teachers place marshmallows in their mouths and asked them to try to talk. She made them write on a chalkboard wearing mittens. And she taught them to give the students simple instructions, slowing down the tempo of their teaching style.

“We just want our kids to have the opportunity to have the same experiences. You don’t know if they like it unless you try,” McHale said.

In Daniel’s class, four students with Down syndrome attend class with four of their typically developing peers. It’s a casual class with no chairs and lots of room for creativity.

As students practiced one scene, Daniel swooped in as a flying super-hero and delivered his lines with enthusiasm.

“I’ve searched the whole island and the headquarters is missing,” he announced to fellow actors.

Last year, the Rose opened their classes to children with autism, blending them into classrooms.

Michael Harrelson, a manager with the Rose, said the theatre wants to be accessible to all children.

“They have wants and desires just like any other students and they should be allowed to pursue those,” he said.

In the class of nine to 13 year olds, there were no stand-out star actors, just a bunch of children gaining confidence and pretending with friends on a Saturday morning.

The blended classes at the Rose show that children with Down syndrome are more like their classmates than different.

“The kids bond together and help each other out,” said Abdullah.

“Our children can do this but they need support, they would definitely fail without that,” McHale said.

Parents file legal claim after police Tasering of their 12-year-old son with autism

From the Los Angeles Times:

The family of a 12-year-old autistic boy who was shot last year with a police stun gun at a Hawthorne middle school accused police officials on March 2 of removing their son from school in handcuffs days after the incident and subjecting him to an interrogation in retaliation for a misconduct complaint the family had filed.

The family's attorneys contacted The Times after reading the Hawthorne Police Department's version of the Sept. 23 incident in the newspaper this week. The department had declined to name the boy.

Despite knowing the youngster was developmentally disabled, investigators had him agree to waive his Miranda rights to remain silent or have an attorney present at the interview, which occurred at department headquarters, the boy's parents said. They said police also threatened to take the boy to Juvenile Hall.

"I really believed that someone was going to call and explain why a 12-year-old was shot in the back with a Taser," said Larry Mathews, the boy's father, who filed a complaint the day after the incident. "And I still haven't heard."

The boy's mother, Almarietha Mathews, said the police overreacted and failed to take into account their son's disorder.

"They arrested him for acting out his mental disability," she said.

The Times is withholding the boy's name because he is a minor.

Hawthorne Police Lt. Michael Ishii said the boy assaulted a security guard and kicked a police officer in the groin before he was shot with the 50,000-volt Taser as he ran toward a campus exit. Police have launched an internal investigation into the use of force.

He said investigators followed procedures in reading the child his Miranda rights before interviewing him to determine whether he knew the difference between right and wrong -- a critical element in deciding whether criminal charges should be filed. Detectives spoke to him for no more than 20 minutes, Ishii said.

"After we spoke to the minor, our investigator had a lengthy discussion with the parents so that they would understand the policies and procedures we were going through," Ishii said.

The issue of using Tasers on children has become controversial in recent years. Several cases in Florida and other parts of the country have prompted calls for a ban on the shocking of minors.

Some police departments discourage the use of electroshock weapons on juveniles, and a National Institute of Justice report last year found that more research is needed to determine the health effects of shocking small children.

Ishii said Officer Vincent Arias made the decision to use the weapon after the boy's adult sister had been called to the school and had been unable to calm him down.

But the boy's family disputed the police account. They said he began feeling agitated when he was asked to line up for his photograph during a "photo day" at the school and started running around the campus.

They said the school's security guard tried to rush the boy and detain him, making their son feel more agitated. The school called the family for help, the couple said, but when the boy's sister, Lauren Mathews, arrived she was held back and prevented from intervening.

Lauren Mathews, a senior at Stanford University, said she arrived before the police officer, and had calmed her brother down. She said Arias ran at full speed toward her brother, agitating him once again. She said she never saw her brother kick Arias and accused the officer of escalating the problem.

The boy was shot with the Taser in the back. Arias deployed the electric charge twice.

"To watch my brother shaking on the ground, it was very traumatic," the sister said. "He wasn't the same for days afterward."

The family said the boy urinated on himself and was taken to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance to have the stun gun's two electrode darts removed from his back.

The family filed a legal claim against the city late last week alleging a variety of civil rights violations, including discrimination because of the boy's disability and race. The child is African American. Arias is Latino.

A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said prosecutors allowed the boy to enroll in a counseling program.

If he successfully completes the program, she said, a criminal case will not be filed against him.

Teen with Down syndrome hit by cars on Interstate after leaving basketball game

From KGW-TV:

PORTLAND, Ore. - Nathan Vredevelt, 16, always had an adventurous spirit.

But when this teen, who has Downs Syndrome, wandered out of an executive suite at Portland Rose Garden's Sunday night Blazers game, his caretakers knew there was trouble.

Nathan wandered outside and onto I-5 where he was hit by two cars.

Pam and John Vredevelt rushed to the hospital.

“I feel like I’m being carried right now. There’s a strength inside of me. It’s more than just adrenaline.” The two are devout Christians and prayed for his recovery.

The neurosurgeon told them he had severe head injuries and internal bleeding.
Pam became unglued, as John describes it.

“Pam said, we have a son who’s going to school out of state. He wants to say goodbye. Should we fly him in? The neurosurgeon said, get him on a plane.”

Nathan has always been a special child.

He was the subject of Pam’s book entitled, “Angel Behind the Rocking Chair.” In the book, she talks about her struggles raising a child with Downs Syndrome.

Nathan almost died during the delivery and now as a teenager, is again fighting for his life.

John wants to send a clear message to the drivers who hit him and Nathan’s caretakers. “Please don’t take blame. Don’t take any condemnation. We are praying for you.”

After hearing the grim prognosis, Pam and John made a decision to let their boy go, if it came to whether Nathan would suffer.

That is, until friends stepped in the way.

“And then we had one person and then another person say John, I believe that God wants to heal your son.”

That’s when they made the decision to hold on and believe that God will save Nathan.
Another challenge facing the Vredevelts is what’s expected to be mounting medical bills.

John lost his job a year and a half ago and his Cobra health insurance ended after 18 months. John claims 5 insurance companies turned him down because of Nathan’s Downs Syndrome condition.

“I am not here to point any fingers.”

For now, all he cares about is praying for his son and hoping that he can survive.

“I believe that God can do something.”

A Bank of America account has been set up in Nathan Vredevelt’s name.

New Flannery O'Connor biography out

From the review in The NY Times. Flannery O'Connor had lupus and interesting, both pictures the NYT used to illustrate the review showed her crutches (pictured). Here's the section that mentions her lupus:

She was a connoisseur of racial jokes. She believed that her audience was “hostile” and that “a writer with Christian concerns needed to take ever more violent means to get her vision across to them.” She spent the last 13 years of her life in Milledgeville, most of them on crutches, her bones and joints ravaged by lupus. She died of lupus, her father as well. Sometimes she painted.

Describing her self-portrait with a pheasant cock, she wrote: “I very much like the look of the pheasant cock. He has horns and a face like the Devil. The self-portrait was made . . . after a very acute siege. . . . I was taking cortisone which gives you what they call a moon face and my hair had fallen out to a large extent due to the high fever, so I looked pretty much like the portrait. When I painted it, I didn’t look either at myself in the mirror or at the bird. I knew what we both looked like.”

The massive doses of cortisone she took arguably propelled her to complete “Wise Blood.” The drug is known to jazz the mind. “Cortisone makes you think night and day,” she said. One reviewer, Robert Giroux recalled, “said that it’s a work of insanity, the writer is insane.”

F.R.I.D.A. advocates for bill to stop sterilization of people with disabilities under guardianship in Illinois

From F.R.I.D.A.:

Help us pass HB 2290 in Illinois! This bill will provide legal protections against forced sterilization of people with disabilities under guardianship.

If you support ending involuntary sterilization in Illinois by passing HB 2290, please sign the FRIDA petition at http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/hb2290/. We will pass this petition to the Illinois state legislature.

What Has Been Happening without HB 2290:

- One guardian (the mother of the ward) did not seek the court's authority to consent to her daughter's involuntary sterilization. The intent of the guardian to have the woman sterilized was discovered when her father received notice that his insurance policy would not cover such a procedure. The father then interceded on his daughter's behalf.

- The guardian of a young woman with a traumatic brain injury filed a petition to have her involuntarily sterilized. The woman had no knowledge of the pending petition, even though she had been using different kinds of contraception successfully for years, and expressed the desire to get married and raise a family one day.

For more information, please visit www.ourfrida.org.

Mississippi state institution worker fined for throwing a stapler at a developmentally disabled resident

From The AP:

JACKSON, Miss. - The Mississippi attorney general's office says an employee at a state-run residential mental retardation facility has been fined for throwing a stapler that struck a resident.

Attorney General Jim Hood says 48-year-old Gary Hardy of Laurel was charged with one count of Misdemeanor Abuse of a Vulnerable Adult stemming from the July 2008 incident at the Ellisville State School.

A Jones County justice court judge ordered Hardy, a veteran employee at the school, to pay a $355 fine and court costs.

Hood did not say if the resident was injured.

Kuwait aims to better integrate people with CP into its society

From a report in Arab Times on a workshop on cerebral palsy in Kuwait:

KUWAIT -- Undersecretary of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor Mohammad Al-Kandari said March 3 more attention should be attached to cerebral palsy sufferers. Kuwait has shed light on this category of people and made the best ways to cater for them and to reintegrate them into the society, Al-Kandari said in a speech on behalf of the Minister of Social Affairs and Labor Bader Al-Duwaila.

He was speaking at the opening of a three-day international workshop for the rehabilitation of employees and families of cerebral palsy sufferers.

“The issue of cerebral palsy depends on several factors, including the degree of health awareness in the community and the efficiency of rehabilitation services,” added Al-Kandari.

He stressed the importance of this workshop to exchange views and experience on ways to improve the rehabilitation and development of workers and people with cerebral palsy.

“Those goals would be achieved through training programs that help them embrace the ideal method of understanding them and fulfilling their needs, and oordination among different interested parties, including governmental and civil society organizations” he noted.

This disability is, in many cases, the incentive to meet the challenges and constitute as a starting point for exploring leading and creative prospects, he said.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Health Roudhan Al-Roudhan announced that the opening of the expansion work in the Farwaniya hospital begins Thursday.

Al-Roudhan told KUNA that the expansion with the latest advanced medical equipment was ordered by His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber
Al-Sabah. He added that 270 more beds would be added to the bed capacity of the hospital, thus, easing the pressure on the hospital.

The minister said that the new extension covered an increase of nine wards distributed over bone, internal medicine, general surgery in addition to the intensive care and ophthalmology.

The minister said that the political leadership topped by HH the Amir was very keen in sparing no effort in supporting development of health services, adding that his ministry is in the process of completing the improvement and development of services in all medical centers.

He expressed pride in the level of modern medical devices used in Kuwaiti hospitals and praised efforts of staffers keen on the rehabilitation and renovation of such hospitals.

Investigators say Canadian teen died due to failure of mental health services

From MSNBC:

OTTAWA, ONTARIO - A report released by Mr. Howard Sapers, Correctional Investigator of Canada, into the death of Ashley Smith finds the teenager died following the inability of federal and provincial health care and correctional systems to provide her with the care, treatment and support she desperately needed.

Addressing Ms. Smith's specific time in the care and custody of the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC), the corrections Ombudsman said a culmination of failures contributed to the 19 year old's death at the Grand Valley Institution for Women, Kitchener Ontario, on October 19, 2007.

Finding Ashley Smith's death "preventable," the report states the tragic incident continues a disturbing pattern of deaths in custody which are the result of ill-functioning and under-resourced correctional and mental health systems. It recommends federal, provincial and territorial governments engage the Mental Health Commission of Canada to develop a National Strategy to ensure better coordination among correctional and mental health systems nationwide, and ultimately, enhance public safety.

"Governments must take immediate actions to improve the assessment, care and treatment of persons with mental illness, inside and outside the justice system," said Mr. Sapers. "Failure to act will continue the unacceptable outcome of individuals with mental illness being incarcerated. Once in the correctional system, it is too often the case that their conditions deteriorate even further. The troubling death of young Ashley Smith not only speaks to system-wide breakdowns within federal corrections, but also to a lack of coordination and cohesiveness among federal/provincial/territorial mental health and correctional systems."

Examining Ms. Smith's short 11 1/2 months in federal custody, the Office of the Correctional Investigator (OCI) found many of the actions and decisions taken by the CSC - at the individual, institutional, regional and national levels - were non-compliant with the law and the Service's own policies. The violations included inappropriate use of institutional transfers, administrative segregation, and interventions involving force. The care and treatment Ms. Smith did receive was inadequate and disjointed and culminated in a failure to respond appropriately to her medical emergencies.

Other key recommendations in this latest report on deaths in custody by the OCI include the Correctional Service:

- Issue an immediate directive that all decisions affecting offenders take into account their health care, including mental health, needs;

- Ensure all Correctional Service National Boards of Investigation into incidents of suicide and self-injury be chaired by an independent mental health professional; and

- Amend its segregation policy to require a psychological review of an inmate's mental health status, with an emphasis on the evaluation of the risk for self harm, be completed within 24 hours of an inmate's placement in segregation.

In 2008, the OCI released A Failure to Respond, a report on the death of another federal inmate. In 2007, the OCI released its Deaths in Custody Study which examined 82 deaths of prisoners while in custody of the Correctional Service from 2001 - 2005. This report concluded that, as in the case of Ashley Smith, some of these deaths could likely have been averted through improved risk assessments, more vigorous preventive measures, and more competent and timely responses by institutional staff.

The Correctional Investigator is mandated by an Act of Parliament to be an independent Ombudsman for federal offenders. This work includes ensuring that systemic areas of concern are identified and addressed. The report on the death of Ms. Smith, as well as other deaths in custody reports, is available at www.oci-bec.gc.ca.

Utah budget cuts may crush hopes of independent living

From the Salt Lake Tribune:

For the first time in years, Trina Russom (pictured) has hope for a more stable future.

But with harsh state budget cuts pending, Russom's dreams of independent living, working a job and furthering her education could quickly evaporate, sending her back to a life of subsistence on the streets.

After ending a 25-year marriage, the now 47-year-old mother of three grown children wrestled with alcohol abuse, domestic violence, post-traumatic stress disorder and a four-year stint of homelessness.

Since February 2008, Russom has occupied one of the 84 studio apartments at South Salt Lake's Grace Mary Manor -- units built specifically for individuals who have been homeless for at least a year.

Russom, who survives on $261 a month from state General Assistance (GA) funds, recently obtained a Section 8 voucher for a subsidized one-bedroom apartment in Taylorsville. After she moves, Russom plans to find work and complete her high school education.

About 1,300 temporarily or permanently disabled Utahns receive GA benefits each month. Current policy allows them to utilize the benefit for 24 months within a five-year period.

According to William Greer, chief financial officer for Utah's Department of Workforce Services, the $7 million General Assistance budget is slated for deep cuts that would pare the 24 months down to 10. DWS also could lose 75 full-time employees due to a $1.2 million cut to its personnel budget -- at a time when case loads are on the rise.

"Right now General Assistance and personnel reduction top their list," Greer said of cuts recommended by the Commerce and Workforce Services Appropriations subcommittee.

"We're trying to do all we can to preserve the benefits to our clients," Greer said, noting that the $261 per month enables them to qualify for subsidized housing and also afford medicaid co-payments.

Dana Smith, (pictured) also a Grace Mary Manor resident, hopes that Greer succeeds.

The 40-year-old Murray native injured his back in a car accident at age 15, leaving him with a permanent disability. A DWS caseworker will help him apply for Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) -- GA benefits serve as a stop-gap measure for those who qualify for SSDI -- but that can take six months to a year to process.

"If they cut GA, I'll only have a couple of months left," Smith said. "I'm not sure what I'll do -- possibly borrow from friends, donate plasma and collect cans along the side of the road."

Steve Erickson, a consultant for the non-profit Crossroads Urban Center, hopes to see the state's GA funds fully replenished.

"These are 1,300 of the state's most vulnerable," Erickson said of GA recipients. "Sixty-three percent of them will eventually receive long-term disability and are unable to work."

Most are single males, Erickson said, some disabled due to PTSD, a mental condition or physical disability.

Erickson knows enough to be deeply concerned about how the budget axe would fall.

"If [someone] is at month 10 and the cut is implemented, [they'll] be on the street after month 11," he said.