For Mentally Ill, Death and Misery
Description:
A yearlong reporting effort by The New York Times, drawing upon more than 5,000 pages of annual state inspection reports, 200 interviews with workers, residents and family members, and three dozen visits to the homes show that many of them have devolved into places of misery and neglect, just like the psychiatric institutions before them.
But if The Times's investigation found that the state's own files over the years have chronicled a stunning array of disorder and abuse at many of the homes, it discovered that the state has not kept track of what could be the greatest indicator of how broken the homes are: how many residents are dying, under what circumstances and at what ages.
The Times's investigation has produced the first full accounting of deaths of adult home residents. At 26 of the largest and most troubled homes in the city, which collectively shelter some 5,000 mentally ill people, The Times documented 946 deaths from 1995 through 2001. Of those, 326 were of people under 60, including 126 in their 20's, 30's and 40's. (Author)
Type of Resource:
Newspaper
Publication Date:
2002
Journal Name:
New York Times
Issue:
April 28th
Location:
New York, NY