Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 11, 1991 TAG: 9104110082
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Del. Joan Munford, D-Blacksburg, said she was "dumbfounded and struck with horror" at a story in Sunday's Roanoke Times & World-News about the woman, who had more than 100 lesions over her body when social workers found her at a private-care home.
Munford said she would push for a law to regulate such facilities.
"I think the whole thing needs to come out in the light," she said Wednesday, so "if there are more situations like this, we'll find them."
Shirley Ryan, 28, who has a birth defect that leaves her without the use of her legs, was discovered the morning of March 1 by social workers in a dirt-floored garage at a home in Northwest Roanoke, according to a welfare investigation report. She had sores on her feet that may have come from rat bites or an untreated illness, the report said.
She was sleeping in a dirty basement room on bare-metal bed springs, and said she had not eaten since the day before, the report said.
Ryan was being cared for by Thomas Hall, 30, in a house at 3903 Richland Ave. N.W.
Hall's mother, Lucille Bass, said he is out of town and cannot be reached for comment. Bass said her son gave Ryan good care, and that Ryan failed to take care of herself by refusing to keep her feet up or wear diapers for her incontinence.
Authorities say they believe that an aunt of Hall's had received Ryan's federal disability check each month and then passed it on to Hall.
Ryan now is living with her mother in Roanoke.
Betty Jo Anthony, a city prosecutor, said her office is considering possible criminal charges in the case.
Along with Ryan, Hall was caring for two other disabled adults at the house, but he was not required to get a license.
Private-care homes with fewer than four residents do not have to answer to any public agency. State officials estimate that thousands of elderly and mentally disabled people live in such unlicenced facilities.
Munford, who has been a nursing-home administrator and is part-owner of a chain of a dozen nursing homes, said, "I honestly did not know that people could keep folks without any sort of oversight at all."
Some owners of licensed adult homes say unlicensed ones should be subjected to some sort of regulation, such as following basic fire-safety rules.
"Our position is: Is it less a tragedy if three persons burn to death in an unlicensed facility than if four burn to death in a licensed one?" Bob Williams, who runs adult homes in Roanoke and Pulaski County, told the Roanoke newspaper last year. "We just feel that these people ought to be brought into the system."
Other states do regulate smaller board-and-care facilities. North Carolina requires a license for any facility with two or more residents. California requires a license to care for even a single resident who is not a family member.
Munford said she likely would seek legislation during next year's General Assembly requiring that all private-care homes register the names of their residents with a state agency. Then a state study would be able to get a better handle on how many residents live in private-care homes and how they are being treated, she said.
"We just can't let it drop," Munford said. "Somehow or another, we're going to get something done about this."
by CNB