Parents fear loss of home for disabled

YAKIMA — The sign in front of the five-story, red-brick building perched on a hill on Speyers Road in Selah reads: "Central Washington Tuberculosis Hospital." It's dated 1947.

Of course, the Yakima County building no longer houses Central Washington's tuberculosis patients. Since 1958, it's been a state hospital for the severely developmentally disabled.

It's now home to 95 residents who need full-time nursing care. About half of the residents are from Central Washington. The others hail from throughout the state. Many are from King County.

The building's history is rich. Photo albums displayed in a fourth-floor conference room offer snapshots of residents at get-togethers, parties and field trips held throughout the years.

The facility's superintendent, Paul Sugden, hopes to one day record the building's story in a book. But some of the parents whose children live and use Yakima Valley School fear that story may be nearing an end.

There are five state hospitals, called residential habilitation centers, in Washington, including Yakima Valley School.

Echoing a national trend of deinstitutionalization, legislators decided last year to begin consolidating those facilities. They directed the state Department of Social and Health Services to close four housing cottages at Fircrest School in Shoreline, resulting in the relocation of 60 of the 250 residents during a two-year period.

The goal of deinstitutionalization is to use alternative community settings — these include assisted-living centers, nursing homes and other programs, such as the nonprofit Community Living in Yakima, which help developmentally disabled individuals live on their own — and to eliminate the use of state hospitals altogether. That trend began about 30 years ago.

During the past three decades, more community options for treatment and care have become available and the number of people living in institutions has dropped. In Washington state, the number of permanent residents has declined from 4,000 to about 1,000.

Some say they fear Yakima Valley School may be next to shut its doors. So recently, about 20 parents of children who use the facility met at the school to resurrect a parent-support group that hadn't met since 1997.

Members of the group, called Friends of Yakima Valley School, are planning to fight to protect the hospital and the clients who use it. They will pay $20 a year in dues so that the group's president, John Mahaney of Yakima, can travel to Olympia during the legislative session, and so they can send mailings to parents to keep them informed.

"Our biggest fear is that they'll make it so these facilities are no longer here," said Marsha Sutton of Ephrata. Her daughter, Rachel, has lived at Yakima Valley School for 18 years. She is mentally impaired, has seizures and requires 24-hour medical care.

"There's no place for kids like this," she said, when asked about finding an alternative placement for her daughter. Rachel lived unsuccessfully in several other facilities before her parents secured a spot at Yakima Valley School, where she's thrived, Sutton said.

Several other parents in attendance had similar stories.

"This place was the best thing that ever happened to him," said Juanita Needham of Yakima, of her son, John Needham, who lives at the facility.

"The word 'institution' has gotten a bad rap," agreed Chris Lund of Bothell, whose daughter, Nina, stays in the school a few weeks each year.

Yakima Valley School is the only one of the five state institutions that is fully a nursing facility, as opposed to the others, which either don't offer nursing care or offer some nursing care in addition to less-intensive services.

Additionally, Yakima Valley School is the only one of the five that receives funding specifically to provide respite beds, or sleeping spaces for children who are cared for by their parents at home, so parents can have a break. The school has 16 such beds, which are reserved months in advance. Families, such as the Lunds from Bothell, travel from all over the state to use them.

About half of the parents who attended the Friends of Yakima Valley School meeting use the facility for respite. They're afraid that if other state hospitals are downsized, residents will be moved to Yakima Valley School and take the respite beds.

So far, one Fircrest resident has been relocated to the Selah institution.

Without Yakima Valley School's respite beds, many parents at the organizational meeting said they wouldn't be able to care for their children at all.

Marian Endicott, 57, cares for her son, Clark, 27. A high fever permanently damaged Clark's brain when he was 3 months old. The 165-pound man, who has cerebral palsy, uses a wheelchair and needs 24-hour supervision. Endicott feeds him, dresses him, bathes him and cares for him. The state pays for her to use 30 days of respite care each year. The only place she can leave her son is Yakima Valley School, she said.

Linda Johnson, chief officer of analysis and information for DSHS' Division of Developmental Disabilities, said DSHS knows the importance of respite beds. But the organization is also aware that the time of state institutions is nearing its end.

"That's the direction most social-service groups are going," she said, adding that community programs are successfully replacing state hospitals throughout the nation. But, she cautioned, lawmakers have the final say.

Johnson said DSHS is working to expand its community-respite program so there are more options for families. There's no timeline set for the state's deinstitutionalization.

Mahaney, a single parent who cares for his 20-year-old son at home and uses the facility for respite care, advised parents that they're in a wait-and-see mode until a new governor is elected.

"With the upcoming budget cuts and closures, we needed a voice for the residents living" at Yakima Valley School, he said.