LINCOLN — People with serious health complications could once again be cared for at the Beatrice State Developmental Center if the state grants approval.
But the medically fragile people who were ordered out of the center in February probably wouldn’t return, a legislative oversight committee was told Monday.
Jodi Fenner, interim developmental disabilities director for the State Department of Health and Human Services, said she expects those people to be settled into new homes in the community before the change occurs.
It could take several months for the center to get its license limitation lifted — too long for the transferred residents to continue living in hospitals and nursing homes, she said.
Fenner met with members of the Legislature’s Developmental Disability Special Investigative Committee to provide updates and answer questions. Among the updates:
Ÿ Interviews are under way for a new center administrator, and Fenner hopes to announce the new person by next week.
Ÿ The deaths of eight medically fragile residents since being moved out of the center will be reviewed by the institution’s mortality review committee.
Forty-seven residents with health complications were transferred from the troubled state institution early this year by order of Nebraska’s chief medical officer.
Dr. Joann Schaefer put limits on the facility’s license after four residents died in January, including three who were considered medically fragile. As chief medical officer, Schaefer oversees licensing of health facilities.
A state investigation into one death, that of 18-year-old Olivia Manes, concluded that staffers had failed to provide her with appropriate emergency care. Her death came 10 months after staffers waited at least 10 minutes to start cardiopulmonary resuscitation on a man who had stopped breathing. That resident also died.
Barbara Hyde of Lincoln, the mother of one resident transferred in February, said Monday it is important for the Beatrice center to be able to serve medically fragile people again.
But Hyde hopes her daughter, Denise Hyde, will have moved into a new home in Omaha by then. Mosaic, a nonprofit organization, is building six homes across the state to serve developmentally disabled people with medical complications.
Fenner said the center has done two of the three things necessary to seek a license change.
Emergency and seizure response policies have been changed, and the center has added medical and nursing professionals. Many of the professionals, however, work for temporary agencies. Fenner said the center needs to hire its own medical staff before applying for an expansion of its license.
Even with a license change, Fenner said, people with serious health problems would be better off in community-based homes near regional hospitals with medical specialists on hand. Beatrice has only a community hospital.
Contact the writer:
402-473-9583, martha.stoddard@owh.com
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