Lauren Ritchie:
Carlton Palms has run out of chances.
Close it. Just close Carlton Palms for good. Do it now, Gov. Rick Scott.
The Mount Dora area facility that is supposed to care for disabled people with the most violent behavior has had the second client in five years die in its care.
The state Agency for Persons with Disabilities said Friday that its “top priority” is to “ensure the health and safety” of clients, yet it has allowed Carlton Palms to stay open despite dozens of sickening cases of mistreatment of fragile people who can’t even speak for themselves. Worse yet, Disability Rights Florida, an advocacy group, concluded last week that Carlton Palms deliberately covers up abuse and neglect.
The first of the two deaths, in 2013, was that of Paige Lunsford, a 14-year-old autistic teen who was tied all night in restraints, where she vomited “like a waterfall” from an untreated infection until she died of dehydration shortly after dawn. Her body was in rigor mortis by the time staffers called 911, and they told widely varying stories of her treatment.
Most outrageously, Carlton Palms officials said they “accidentally” deleted video of the teenager’s death from cameras they were forced to install after another patient was hurt earlier.
Now, William Lamson is dead. Carlton Palms staffers repeatedly told both the agency and Lake County deputy sheriffs in statements and in a 911 call that the 26-year-old severely autistic man died March 1 after deliberately “flopping” to the floor and striking the back of his head three to five times before they could stop him.
Problem: Lamson had no head injuries, and deputies found no blood, according to reports.
Earlier this week, the story changed.
A staffer told detectives that he coaxed Lamson into a bedroom to try to calm his aggressive behavior but instead lost his temper with the disabled man, who then quit breathing, and no one will ever know for certain what happened because — surprise, surprise — the camera in the bedroom was inoperative, the Sentinel learned. No one has been arrested, and the investigation continues.
Since Lamson’s death, deputies have been called to the facility three times: once to investigate whether staffers bruised a teen while roughly trying to restrain him; a second time to locate yet another client they didn’t bother to watch, who then wandered off; and a third time Thursday when a 19-year-old woman diagnosed as schizophrenic accused a staffer of choking her and jerking her arms around her back in retaliation for the client throwing pillows, sheriff ’s reports show.
Deputies don’t believe a crime was committed in the two abuse complaints. However, a state
Department of Children and Families investigator immediately stopped the staffer from working with clients in the case involving the female victim, and he ordered the caretaker to attend retraining.
In the other incident, deputies found the nonverbal client in wet shorts running barefoot in a neighbor’s yard about 6 a.m. March 11. Staffers couldn’t explain why they had failed to check on the 18-year-old man since 4:15 a.m., though they had orders to confirm his well-being and location every 15 minutes. Carlton Palms, located in a cluster of buildings and houses in unincorporated Lake Jem, fired the staffer who was supposed to be watching the client. Facility officials are still trying to figure out how the client got out of the house. Investigators were told windows and doors were locked and no door alarm sounded.
That’s not the only thing that Carlton Palms hasn’t been able to explain over the years. The complaints just never stop at this place.
In April 2016, a security camera caught a caregiver pushing a patient against a wall, throwing him to the floor, choking him and thrusting his elbow into the man’s head. A second caregiver deliberately turned his back to the abuse.
A different caregiver threw scalding water on an autistic man in October 2014 when he declined a cup of coffee. The staffer served six months in jail and six months probation. Cameras caught her tossing 165-degree water on the client who couldn’t talk, blistering his chest. Her defense to the charge of felony abuse of a disabled person? She claimed that abuse occurred every day at Carlton Palms, and the man could have suffered that injury at any time.
Time and time again, the Agency for Persons with Disabilities, which licenses Carlton Palms, has cut this for-profit company a break for reasons only it knows. It has released lots of babble about working “collaboratively” yet “aggressively” with the company, which is owned by Delaware-based
Bellwether doesn’t deserve to make another nickel off the backs of Florida’s disabled. It is past time for Scott to stop the torture of these people, for it is nothing less.
Bellwether Behavioral Health. Bellwether didn’t respond to calls or emails seeking comment.
Finally, in 2016, APD ordered Carlton Palms to begin moving clients to smaller, more residential homes by March 2019. In the meantime, the agency also required the facility to hire human monitors for “all days and shifts and areas” of the facility. No monitors were on site when the man ran away last week, and they were in other buildings when Lamson died.
APD has demanded more training, better surveillance cameras, more supervisors on site, more this, more that. None of it has worked.
The time has come to close this hellhole — now, and for good. Get those 116 remaining APD clients out of there before more die. Don’t let Bellwether care for another disabled person in Florida — even though they want to, very badly. Who wouldn’t at up to $160,000 per client annually?
Here is the disturbing future unless Scott intervenes: APD is busily licensing Bellwether to house the very same patients they have so badly mistreated at Carlton Palms using the same staffers, only in smaller “residential” homes. The only thing different will be that these residential homes aren’t required to have cameras or monitors to keep some semblance of accountability.
Bellwether doesn’t deserve to make another nickel off the backs of Florida’s disabled. It is past time for Scott to stop the torture of these people, for it is nothing less.