State Faults Care for People with Disabilities

Nearly 300,000 New Yorkers with disabilities and mental illness face a “needless risk of harm” because of conflicting regulations, a lack of oversight and even disagreements over what constitutes abuse, according to a draft state report obtained by The New York Times. 

"In 2010, the number of abuse accusations at large institutions overseen by the State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities outnumbered the beds in those facilities — a sign of trouble in buildings where many of the state’s most vulnerable residents are housed, and where the state has repeatedly had trouble with abusive employees and unexplained injuries and deaths among residents, according to the report," the newspaper reports. Read the copyrighted story here.