4.17.03

The Potential Impact of the Fernald Closure on Residents

Under the governor's budget proposal, The Fernald Center is slated for closure. This facility is home to the most profoundly retarded, medically fragile and behaviorally challenged people in Massachusetts. Fernald provides a menu of state-of-the-art services to its patients, including: access to specialized doctors and nurses; psychiatric professionals; physical-therapy resources; respiratory-therapy resources; occupational-therapy resources; speech and communications services; dental services; and adaptive technologies. These services cannot be found anywhere else. Closure of Fernald could result in the death of many of its residents, or at best, a dramatic deterioration in their health and quality of life.

• Patti Hillis has been a resident of The Fernald Center in Waltham for more than 30 years. She is 37 years old, and suffers from multiple disabilities. Weighing just 65 pounds, Patti is oxygen dependent and is fed through a nasogastric tube; she has never walked or talked and has the mental capabilities of a 4-year-old. But according to Patti's sister and long-time advocate for the mentally retarded, Cathy Gover, Patti is happy and thriving at The Fernald Center. Here, she has her own room and receives around the clock care from a team of professionals and staff who provide her with the highest quality of life possible for someone in her condition.
• Danny Onusseit has lived in The Fernald Center's Hillside building for 27 years. He is 40 years old and is severely mentally retarded. Danny's well-being is seriously compromised when he is put in situations that he finds overwhelming and intimidating. But at Fernald Danny is safe, because he understands the Hillside building to be his home: his place of comfort, safety and security. On two occasions in this 27-year period though, Danny has tried moving to other homes—community-based facilities that DMR decision makers thought would be better for him. On both occasions, the management at the community-based homes found that Danny's needs were too severe to allow him to stay and he was sent back to Fernald. In one instance, his transfer came following an accident that he suffered during a field trip. The trip was to a ceramics studio, and, while there, Danny accidentally ingested lead-based paint. He was hospitalized for a month and was immediately sent back to The Fernald Center after discharged.
• Ronnie and Randy Russo are 50-year-old twin brothers who have lived at Fernald since the age of five. Both are classified as profoundly retarded, both are blind and both are unable to express themselves verbally. Dianne Booher, the twins' sister, is their co-guardian and she works closely with her 71-year-old father in advocating and caring for them. Over the years, Dianne has watched her brothers try to "cope" with the changes that a shrinking mental-health budget have brought to Fernald—and the most recent changes were nothing short of devastating for the Russo brothers. Following the layoff of a Fernald nurse who had been caring for the twins for the last 17 years, Ronnie began to develop extremely agitated behaviors—constantly kicking and flailing. Shortly after, he was diagnosed with an upper-GI bleed which developed into a severe esophageal tear. At the same time, Randy began spending more time wrapped in the fetal position, while he continuously scratched and rubbed at his skin. Eventually, Dianne says, his skin developed a leather-like quality.

To learn more about the residents of The Fernald Center, contact Jennifer Johnson at (781) 830-5718 or via e-mail at jjohnson@mnarn.org.