Human rights ‘emergency’
Campaign calls for community support
A NEW campaign launched today has highlighted the “human rights scandal” of those with disabilities being warehoused in hospitals and care homes.
People with learning disabilities are languishing for years in hospitals when they want to be living independently.
Enable Scotland’s campaign #MyOwnFrontDoor is calling for adults with learning disabilities to have the right to support in their own home, in the area of their choosing.
One NHS consultant psychiatrist told the charity she had been supporting a woman who had lived in a hospital for 60 years.
Jan Savage, director of Enable Scotland, said: “This is a human rights emergency. It is a national scandal – hidden in plain sight. People who have a learning disability are being forced to live far from home, to ‘live’ in hospital or in care settings where they are uncomfortable and unhappy.
“People who have learning disabilities are being subjected to a level of discrimination that we do not expect other groups in our society to bear.”
Due to lack of support to live in their own communities, more than 1000 adults have been sent by Scottish local authorities to live “out of area”.
A further 67 are living in hospital, with 10 per cent being there for more than a decade.
One young woman, 27, died in a Scots hospital before Christmas after she had been living there for two years – despite her mum’s pleas to be allowed home to her care.
Some become stuck in the system when admitted to hospital for assessments and discharge is delayed because there is inadequate support.
About 294 adults who have a learning disability or autism are in NHS Scotland inpatient units and 54 are there through delayed discharges.
Enable is calling for the closure of assessment and treatment units, which are supposed to offer short-term secure placements but where people can be stuck for years.
Launching the campaign, John Feehan, who has a learning disability, said choices are stolen from people like him.
He said: “Some think people who have a learning disability are not able to live in local communities like everyone else. That isn’t true. It is only because the right support is not there.”
Go to enable.org.uk/ myownfrontdoor for info.
It is a national scandal – hidden in plain sight