Fact Sheet: The Fernald Center, 200 Trapelo Road, Waltham, MA

At 155 years old, The Fernald Center is the oldest publicly-funded facility for the retarded in the western hemisphere. It was originally established in Boston by Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe—also the founder of the Perkins School for the Blind—with a $2,500 grant from the state legislature. In 1887, it moved to its current location in Waltham under the leadership of Dr. Walter E. Fernald.

Today, 298 residents, aging from 31 – 95 years, live on the 182-acre campus, which includes an indoor handicapped accessible pool, gymnasiums, activity center, meeting hall and a ball field. The Fernald Center employees more than 1,000 staff, with about 70 percent of the staff engaged in direct care services.

The residents of The Fernald Center are among the most profoundly retarded and disabled citizens of the commonwealth. Over the last two decades nearly 1,700 Fernald residents have been moved out of the center and into the community. Those that remain are incapable of surviving in community residents and depend on the services Fernald provides.

Most residents are classified as severely retarded while many others are classified as profoundly retarded, meaning that their IQ is 20 or below. Often times, residents' IQs are so low that they are not even testable. Residents also have severe physical disabilities that are associated with diseases like cerebral palsy and spina bifida.

Many of Fernald's residents depend on some sort of technical assistance in order to live, including ventilators, gastrostomy tube insertions and tracheostomies. Some residents are blind, deaf and/or mute, and, as a result, they require a rigid daily routine in order survive. Some are permanently in wheelchairs designed to accommodate the needs of the severely disabled. Often, these wheelchairs measure more than five feet in length and three feet in width. Fernald's rooms, hallways and facilities have been re-designed to help this type of resident move more easily.

A team of direct-service staff members and clinicians work together to meet the individual needs of the residents at Fernald. The team may include speech, occupational, physical and recreation therapists, direct-care staff, psychologists and social workers. Nurses are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

No other state facility or community-based center in Massachusetts has Fernald's resources and expertise. While the Romney administration claims money could be saved by closing Fernald and moving these residents into smaller community based homes, no such homes currently exist, and there is no plan to build or fund such services. And if these services were provided, the cost of providing this level of care in multiple community settings would far exceed the cost of keeping The Fernald Center open.

Research conducted in the state of California found that after adjusting for differences in age, mobility, and other risk factors, mortality was 72 percent higher for retarded patients living in the community as compared to those living in institutions. It was noted that the difference may be in the quality of community medical services. (Strauss, DJ and Kastner, TA. 1996.)