Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 26, 1992 TAG: 9201260125
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: E7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
ROANOKE WOMAN'S PLIGHT INSPIRES ADULT-NEGLECT BILL
Last spring, social workers found a mentally retarded woman shut into a dirt-floored garage in Northwest Roanoke. She was sitting in a wheelchair and her body was covered with more than 100 lesions.Welfare officials said 28-year-old Shirley Ryan had been badly neglected in an unlicensed private-care home.
Now the woman's case has prompted two state legislators to introduce a bill that would help regulate such unlicensed facilities.
Del. Joan Munford, D-Blacksburg, and state Sen. Joseph Gartlan Jr., D-Fairfax County, have proposed what would be the first state criminal-neglect law protecting adults.
The legislation would make it a crime for a caregiver to endanger elderly or disabled adults by withholding "essential services."
The bill defines a caregiver as someone who has a duty to care for an adult through a contract, family ties or other reasons.
Anyone who violated the law would face a $1,000 fine and up to five years in prison.
The legislation would cover licensed nursing and adult homes. But Munford said it is aimed mainly at unlicensed operations that earn money caring for adults.
State officials already can punish licensed homes that are guilty of neglect by taking away their licenses to operate.
However, thousands of elderly and disabled adults are being cared for across the state in unlicensed homes that have three or fewer residents.
Because these homes have no licenses, there is little that can be done in cases of neglect - unless the victim dies. If an adult dies from neglect, authorities can seek manslaughter charges.
Roanoke prosecutors looked into Ryan's case. But Betty Jo Anthony, chief assistant commonwealth's attorney, said there was no state law that would have allowed them to pursue criminal charges.
Ryan has a birth defect that leaves her without the use of her legs. When she was discovered by social workers March 1, she had sores on her feet that may have come from rat bites or an untreated illness, a welfare investigation 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. The mother of the man who was supposed to be caring for Ryan denied that Ryan had been neglected.
Ryan went to live with her mother, Bessie Meiss, after social workers took her out of the private-care home. Meiss said last week that Ryan is staying in a licensed adult home while Meiss is undergoing a series of eye operations. Ryan is doing well and will move back home with her soon, Meiss said.
Meiss said she thought the proposed law "would be a good thing. I hope they pass the bill." Her daughter "was treated like a dog" and nothing was done about it, Meiss said.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY