- DilAfrikaans Argentina AzÉrbaycanca
á¥áá áá£áá Äesky Ãslenska
áá¶áá¶ááááá à¤à¥à¤à¤à¤£à¥ বাà¦à¦²à¦¾
தமிழ௠à²à²¨à³à²¨à²¡ ภาษาà¹à¸à¸¢
ä¸æ (ç¹é«) ä¸æ (é¦æ¸¯) Bahasa Indonesia
Brasil Brezhoneg CatalÃ
ç®ä½ä¸æ Dansk Deutsch
Dhivehi English English
English Español Esperanto
Estonian Finnish Français
Français Gaeilge Galego
Hrvatski Italiano Îλληνικά
íêµì´ LatvieÅ¡u Lëtzebuergesch
Lietuviu Magyar Malay
Nederlands Norwegian nynorsk Norwegian
Polski Português RomânÄ
Slovenšcina Slovensky Srpski
Svenska Türkçe Tiếng Viá»t
Ù¾Ø§Ø±Ø³Û æ¥æ¬èª ÐÑлгаÑÑки
ÐакедонÑки Ðонгол Ð ÑÑÑкий
СÑпÑки УкÑаÑнÑÑка ×¢×ר×ת
اÙعربÙØ© اÙعربÙØ©
Anasayfa / Albümler / Etiketler Medicaid
+ nursing homes + Atlantis Community 4
ADAPT (37)
The Denver Post August 29, 1976 PHOTO: A woman (Carolyn Finell) sits in her wheelchair turned sideways, relaxed, facing the camera. Her arm is slung over the backrest, and she is beaming. New Key Fulfills Residents' Dreams (continued from page 36) and the other four Atlantis residents to go out on their own without state support for a proposal advanced by Atlantis. That proposal was presented in June to Henry A. Foley, director of the Colorado Social Services Department. Foley's response was enthusiastic according to Wade Blank and Glen Kopp, co-directors at Atlantis. And as a result, Foley set up a pilot project which will go until the end of 1977. Simply stated, the project involves Atlantis'creation of an expanded staff of attendants to provide necessary services to the disabled in their apartments and homes as well as at Atlantis. And the state medicaid fund will pick up the difference between government cost for attendant services and the amount of funds that actually are expended to provide the disabled with necessary care as certified by a physician. Blank explained that the government pays an average of $575 monthly for a severely disabled young adult living in a nursing home. If the disabled person moves into his own apartment he receives $186?[text is blury] monthly from various governmental sources to pay for his rent, food, telephone and personal needs. And a county social services department may provide an additional $40 to $217 monthly to the disabled person for attendant services. But quite often, Blank said, even the maximum of $217 monthly doesn't cover the attendant services needed. And qualified attendants may not always be available, he noted. The cooperative program between Atlantis and the state might remedy those shortcomings and might cut government expenditures for the disabled substantially, Blank said. If the program is successful, Blank said, it could be expanded statewide for the disabled. Eventually, he added, the program might be extended to the state's elderly persons to keep them in their own homes and apartments, rather than placing them in a facility outside the home. Equally elated over the program is Mary Joyce, who is Jeannie's mother. Mrs. Joyce and her husband, Joseph, came to Denver last week from their home in Scarborough, Maine and were with Jeannie when she first viewed her apartment. “It's a pretty wonderful step" Mrs. Joyce said as she watched her daughter move in her wheelchair through the apartment. "We can't believe the strides she'd made in the last two years with her determination to live on her own and take care of herself." To two other Atlantis residents, George Roberts and Don Clubb, the move to their own apartment is "a pretty big change." Born with cerebral palsy, George, now 28, was left as an infant at the door of an adoption agency in southern Colorado. George then was placed in a state home and training school where he remained for 21 years - a period he describes as "all my life." He also spent more than four years in a nursing home before being accepted at Atlantis in June 1975. Don, who soon will be 20, lost both legs as the result of a slide down a mountainside when he was six years old. For about 10 years, Don was in state home and training schools. And for the past five years, he has been in a nursing home. He, too, is confined to a wheelchair. Last week, as George and Don viewed the apartment they will share in north Denver, they seemed to invest the nearly empty rooms with an almost magical air. "It's wonderful," George said over and over. Carefully, he moved his wheelchair up to the electric stove and inspected the oven. In the bedroom, he was jubilent as he examined the heating and air-conditioning controls. And almost reverently, he opened and closed the sliding doors of a large bedroom closed. Don spoke quietly but with no less enthusiasm. "It's a very nice place - the first place of my own," he said. He smiled in the direction of the outdoor pool and said he swam very well and would teach George. Also preparing to move into an apartment they will share in south Denver are two other Atlantis residents, Carolyn Finnell, 33 and Nancy Anderson, 31. When she was 21, Nancy underwent surgery for removal of a brain tumor. For the next nine years, Nancy just sat in Denver area nursing homes unable to talk or walk, her body partially paralyzed. At that time, doctors said Nancy would be confined to nursing homes for the rest of her life and would never walk again. But since moving to Atlantis last summer, Nancy has been striving diligently in therapy sessions at Denver General Hospital. Working through the pain and the fatigue, she has learned to walk for up to 300 yards with the aid of a walker. And she has expanded her vocabulary to almost 10 words and is using a word machine in the new process of learning others. For Carolyn Finnell, who was born with cerebral palsy, there has been no easy or direct road to independent living. After finishing the ninth grade, Carolyn wasn't particularly encouraged to continue. But she was convinced and convinced others, that she was capable of further education. She obtained her GED, or general equivalency diploma, which is equivalent to a high school diploma. And she earned a degree in journalism at Metropolitan State College. But then there were the leaden days - four years in nursing homes "which didn't work out." Afterward, Carolyn came to Atlantis and her hope was reborn. Now, Carolyn is working in the Atlantis planning office and preparing plans for the education of the disabled. In her quarters at Atlantis last week, Carolyn said it was painful to leave so many behind when she left the nursing home. "But as we move out of Atlantis, it will make it possible for others to move in - and they never thought that was possible," she added. Looking to the future, Carolyn said she would like to return to school to obtain training so that she can tutor disabled persons who have never had an education. "There's a whole generation of disabled people who have been denied an education," she said. Carolyn stressed that she wasn't going to "wage a war against nursing homes I'm willing to live and let live." But she obviously was emotionally affected as she said, "I never realized until I got out of a nursing home that for a young person, it's a living death: You really have nothing to live for...nothing to do but just sit. Many disabled persons, Carolyn noted, attend Opportunity School and Boettcher School in Denver. "But I know for myself," she said, "I didn't have any faith in my ability to work." "But I've been involved in Atlantis planning," she said as a smile swept across her face and she threw out her arms, embracing the air. "I've gained faith in my ability and I'm started to get ambitious." Her next words came slowly, with triumphal emphasis: "I....just....feel....alive!"
ADAPT (635)
Different TIMES, September 24, 1990, p. 6 ADAPT fights for attendant services (Reprinted with permission from the Disability Rag; Box 145; Louisville, KY 40201.) [This story continues on 623 but the text is included here in full, for ease of reading.] “People with disabilities have the civil and human right to dependable attendant services that meet our daily needs in the location and manner of our choice." This simple declaration, made in Denver this summer, signaled the offensive being launched by ADAPT against “the nursing home lobby feeding off peoples' lives." It's ironic, says ADAPT member Mark Johnson. "Here we've finally got our rights now, in a law, and here you have more and more severely disabled people wanting to kill themselves—literally kill themselves—because they're being forced into nursing homes." “That Ken Bergstedt in Nevada [who petitioned the court in May to disconnect his respirator] is literally saying, “l'll end my life before I'll go in a nursing home," Johnson said. “What do you expect when people only have institutionalization to look forward to?" adds actress Nancy Becker Kennedy, one of the group that conducted a hunger strike in Los Angeles in July to protest the cut of California’s In Home Supportive Services. “Their attempts to stay in their homes are thwarted." lt’s the same with Georgia's highly publicized Larry McAfee, who was just put into a “group home," says ADAPT. Even after all the publicity, the State of Georgia will not put any money into funding attendant services in one's own home. And ADAPT is fed up. Recalling the phrase the transit industry used to argue that each city should decide whether or not to put lifts on buses, ADAPT calls the patchwork system of funding in-home services “the old ‘local option’ stuff all over again." “We're sick of it,"says Johnson. There needs to be a national commitment. In California, activists battled for several months to restore their In Home Support Services program which had been entirely cut from the state budget—and succeeded only in restoring it to its former level, which allows a disabled person to hire an attendant only at minimum wage and for no more than eight hours a day. People who need an attendant around the clock, like Ken Bergstedt, have little hope of avoiding a nursing home even in California, often cited as the state with the best attendant services program in the nation. Yet such battles sap the energy of disability activists for the larger fight for a national commitment. ADAPT has modified its former name, “American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation" to “American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today" to reflect its new focus. ADAPT says attendant services are a right. The group wants the program it's calling for to make attendant services available "based on functional need" rather than “whether a person can work or not." They don't want "employability" to be a "condition for getting services. And they don't want eligibility based on any specific disability, as it is in many states now. They want it to be available “to people of all ages, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with back-up emergency services."They stress they're not asking for “someone to hold your hand" but are speaking of the realistic needs of people like McAfee, Rick Tauscher, and Bergstedt who need an attendant available around the clock. They also say a program that allows the disabled person maximum control over an attendant is mandatory. Maybe a disabled person won’t want that control; maybe they'll want someone else to handle the paperwork and hiring decisions. That should be the disabled person‘s option, they say. There’s a quality-control issue here, they insist; they want to make sure disabled people get quality care but are allowed maximum say over personal services they receive—which is all too often not the case today as home "health" agencies muscle their way into the home "care" field. They‘re sick of the word “care.” They want a program that doesn’t keep anyone from services because they make too much money; they're willing, they say, to deal with a sliding scale for fees for such a program; but they want it available to anyone who needs it—regardless of income. It's a right, and cost is simply not an issue, they say. Keeping disabled people in institutions is ludicrously more expensive than providing in-home services in this country today. They blame that lack for the problems Larry MeAfee's constantly found himself in; they blame the nursing home industry for siphoning off the money that could go to fund such services. And they charge that home health agencies are nothing more than “the new nursing homes." Home health agencies “take people on Medicare and give them services and then bill them for $60 a pop," says ADAPT organizer Wade Blank. “Then when their Medicare coverage runs out after six months, they drop ‘em." The group says it’s also targeting “the big insurance companies like Prudential" and health maintenance organizations, who they say have a vested interest in keeping the system like it is. “We're saying that ethically and morally, nursing homes are not the place to go," says Blank. “When I see my severely disabled friends, living in their own homes, when l visit them in their apartments, listen with them to records or order in a pizza—and then I see my friends living in nursing homes, wasting away, waiting to die, I get very, very angry,” said Southern California ADAPT member Lilibeth Navarro. A survey of ADAPT members through their newsletter, Incitement, led them to decide to shift the focus to attendant services, said Navarro. And they're emphatic about the term too. “It’s not ‘attendant care‘ anymore," said Blank. “Whenever anybody said ‘care’ everybody booed,“ he added. It is fitting that ADAPT, whose original members came from Denver‘s Atlantis Community, will focus on attendant services. It was that need which led to the start of Atlantis, a “community” of disabled people and attendants. Atlantis “has a neat system,"agrees Navarro, noting that the 24-hour rotary attendant services allows any Atlantis person to have an attendant available whenever it's needed. “We could call an attendant at 11:30 p.m. and have somebody here," she said. “People who are having trouble with attendants can call and get an emergency back-up." Navarro, like others, said she knew of people “who endured abuse because they were afraid to lose their attendant"—"because it's so hard to find somebody, and nobody to turn to in an emergency situation." She related the story of a man whose attendant simply walked out on him and left him, unable even to reach a phone, for four days. “If his father hadn't checked on him, he'd be dead." “Only a national attendant program," she stressed, “will free us from emotional slavery Nancy Becker Kennedy agreed with Navarro. “The linchpin for independent living is in-home attendant services. It’s humane; it gives us a future." The group has sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan demanding a meeting in Atlanta Oct. 1; they've given Sullivan until Aug. 15 to reply. ADAPT activists from around the nation will descend on Atlanta the first week of October to launch the fight. They’ll be calling for a quarter of the money now going to the nursing home industry to “go into a pot for attendant services." As usual, ADAPT doesn’t expect this to happen without a fight -- primarily from the “nursing home lobby.” “This October," says Blank, “we will serve notice on those groups who are the enemies of a national attendant services program." TEXT BOX: ADAPT will converge on Atlanta — home of Morehouse College, HHS Secretary Louis Sullivan’s alma mater — on Sept. 28 for week-long direct action protest and training. Nationally known organizer Shel Trapp will conduct the session Saturday, Sept. 29. For more information on travel and hotel arrangements, contact ADAPT in Denver at (303) 936-1110. — Reprinted with permission from the Disability Rag; Box 145; Louisville, KY 40201.
ADAPT (628)
Edition USA/Colorado ADAPT seeks home care for all by Kerri S. Smith A national disabled persons’ advocacy organization based in Denver has launched a campaign aimed at moving people from nursing homes to home care. American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT) has at short-term goal: to re-direct 25 percent on the government's annual nursing home care budget. That money—estimated at $5.5 billion federal money and $5.5 billion from state coffers-would fund a national home care program instead. Under the ADAPT proposal, nursing home residents whose care is covered by Medicare or Medicaid could live at home. The government would pay home are attendants to care for them, rather than paying the facility. ADAPT spokesperson Mike Auberger said the group seeks “the ultimate demise of the nursing home system," and contends that paying an attendant to provide home care for a person usually costs less than nursing home care. In theory, the ADAPT plan would spend government money more efficiently-the same money would be used to care for more people who need assistance. The government is not enthusiastic about the idea, and a local nursing home industry spokesperson said ADAPT's demands are unrealistic. Auberger said Health and Human Services secretary Louis Sullivan declined to meet with ADAPT representatives. "We've been going back and forth with them, and the outcome is he doesn't meet with radical groups," Auberger said. And Arlene Linton, executive director of the Colorado Health Care Association (CHCA), said moving nursing home residents out of facilities “would isolate many of them from the community. “They'd also be without the 24-hour-care and rehabilitative services provided in nursing homes," Linton said. CHCA is the local branch of the American Health Care Association, which represents the nursing home industry. Linton added that ADAPT "is talking dollars, not people. Some residents have outlived their family and friends, and need the support a nursing home offers." A national campaign to publicize ADAPT's proposal began Jan. 15. Members demonstrated at government offices (including Health Care Financing Administration offices) and nursing homes in 24 cities. Auberger said media coverage was minimal, due to the Persian Gulf Crisis. Locally, ADAPT representatives demonstrated in Lakewood at Bethany Care Center. In the mid-'70s, the facility was operated by different owners and was known as Heritage House. Conditions at that time sparked a 13-year lawsuit over nursing home residents’ rights. The Federal Omnibus Reconciliation Act (OBRA) of 1988 also addressed quality of life issues for nursing home residents. The bill became effective Oct. 1, 1990. ln 1974, former Heritage House residents joined with Denverite Wade Blank and others to form the Atlantis Community, a local home care agency that currently cares for 135 people in Denver and Colorado Springs. Later, Atlantis Community leaders founded ADAPT. The group mobilized the civil rights movement for disabled persons, and ultimately affected the way nursing homes are inspected and regulated nationally. Auberger claims many current nursing home patients don't require intensive medical care, and "end up there only because they're out of money or their families can't care for them." Linton said CHCA met with ADAPT representatives twice to discuss the attendant proposal, "but they rejected our request to form a task force to find common ground." While Linton endorses home care as “a part of the long-term care continuum," she called the ADAPT proposal “robbing Peter to pay Paul. "We cannot support the concept of lowering funding for nursing home patients, to set up another funding to attendant services," Linton said. “We need new, additional funding for that." Recent federal budget cuts may make additional funding unlikely, at least in the near future. Atlantis and ADAPT are determined, however, and they are prepared for a long campaign.
ADAPT (618)
November 1992 Access USA News Page 5 Atlantis leads to ADAPT leads to independence Cathy Seabaugh, Staff Writer DENVER,CO-Their offices are relatively small compared to the massive projects the American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today organization tackles. An inconspicuous location in south central Denver serves as national headquarters for the 29 states who have ADAPT chapters. This Colorado town is a gold mine for members of the disabled community, not so much for its accessibility and attitudes, but for the brainstem which this office at 12 Broadway has become. ADAPT representatives throughout the United States act as nerve endings, sending vital messages to the Denver office so it can operate efficiently and effectively. Effectiveness: a term well defined by ADAPT members. ADAPT was conceived and delivered by staff and volunteers of Atlantis Community, founded in 1975 by former nursing home employee Wade Blank and Mike Auberger, a quadriplegic from a bobsledding accident in 1971. Atlantis emerged so that individuals, even those who are severely, multiply-disabled, have the option to live outside an institution. ln its first l5 years, Atlantis was able to successfully transition more than 400 disabled adults from “sheltered settings" to more independent living standards. As an admirable offspring of Atlantis, ADAPT set its own agenda in June 1983 and embarked on an action-packed mission to make public transportation accessible to everyone. American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit set out to train, develop and empower disabled activists so they could effectively battle for that accessibility. Eighteen members of the Atlantis community had taken the first strides toward accessible public transportation in Denver when they gathered on July 5&6, 1978, to block city buses at Broadway and Colfax across from the state capitol. ‘Then in 1982, after beating up the board enough," said Auberger, one of the 18, "they decided they'd buy all lift-equipped buses." Once ADAPT formed the next year, the foundation was in place. With Denver as a model, activists began chipping away at other cities’ granite-like, antiquated public transportation systems. "(Former President Jimmy) Carter appointed Brock Adams in 1976 and Adams set a federal mandate that all new buses bought with federal money had to have (wheelchair) lifts,” Auberger said. "Under the Reagan administration, APTA (American Public Transit Association) sued (to avoid the lift requirements) and won. "APTA was having its national convention in Denver in October 1983 and about 20 people from across the country showed up to join about 22 people from Denver. We sent notice to (APTA) that their convention would not go uninterrupted if they did not meet with us. They went to the mayor, but he said he wouldn't protect them unless they agreed to meet with us.” ADAPT met APTA there. They would meet many more times. "We decided wherever they had a convention, we would go,” Auberger said. "It moved us around to communities where they'd never been exposed to the issues. People all of a sudden became aware. "If we're talking about the issues, people are going to form an opinion. You polarize people. Whether they support you or not is not the point. If there's not an opinion there, you can't change it." The deep roots, pockets or whatever of APTA were a long-time barrier for ADAPT. But as the Americans with Disabilities Act cemented and included regulations for public transportation, APTA’s resistance to ADAPT's demands weakened until the federal govemment finally made ADA the law. With that priceless piece of legislation signed and inducted into the pages of history, ADAPT was ready for its next mission. "What we said at that point to members was to put out feelers in your communities,” Auberger said. "What we found was personal assistants was the biggest issue of concern.” Retaining the ADAPT acronym, the group devised new plans to force change in the long-term health care system of the United States. “At least 60 percent of ADAPT members have (resided) in nursing homes at one time or another,” Auberger said, "The other 40 percent have spent their lives trying to avoid going into one.” Although ADAPT and Atlantis are neither to lose its identity in the other, they are a family unit and work together toward change. Atlantis is a certified home health care agency, making 53,000 visits each year in Denver and Colorado Springs, serving approximately 85 clients. “That's 365 days a year, whether there's three feet of snow on the ground or it's 105 degrees," Auberger said. “We have a 24-hours-a-day emergency backup system that works probably 98 percent of the time." One Atlantis client is a C2 quadriplegic who is on a ventilator nonstop. Yet he is allowed to live in his own home with the help of Atlantis personal attendants. "That shows you our capabilities,” Auberger said. ”We can provide 24-hour care for about $7,500 a year. A nursing home would do it for $20,000.” ADAPT’s scrapbook for the past two years includes protests in almost countless cities throughout the country. Wherever Dr. Louis Sullivan, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, made a speech or appearance, ADAPT added itself to the invitation list. The protests usually involved arrests, which is a proven effective tool for drawing media coverage. Radical activity, some say. "We really give the middle-of-the-road disabled community members the power to make change," Auberger said. "We make them look sane. “It's like in Illinois, Gov. Edgar didn't have a problem meeting with the straight group who went to Springfield because they were sane. lf he dealt with our radical group, he'd have to deal with all radical groups. We really give (middle-of-the-road community members) a platform." ADAPT picks on Sullivan because, they say, he can initiate change. They argue that Sullivan's signature is all that's necessary to require the states receiving Medicaid to provide personal assistants. Just more than half the states provide such funding and many; if not all, of those programs are underfunded, restricted and far short of meeting the demand. ADAPT seeks to convince Health and Human Services - Sullivan - to take one-third of the $15 billion Medicaid dollars and commit it to home-based, consumer-controlled services. "Every state that buys into Medicaid has to fund nursing homes,” Auberger said, explaining how the system currently works. Sixty-five percent of all money paid to nursing homes is Medicaid funds. "States have little play in what they can do with Medicaid.” Nursing homes use what's called a “cold bed rate" which refers to the empty beds in their institutions that are not producing income. Lobbyists for the nursing home industry are looking at these rates and profit margins, not at long-term care that allows individuals to retain their independence. "We’ve become a valuable commodity,” Auberger said. "It's a normal mindset to put someone in a nursing home. This is so ingrained in our society. There's currently no alternative, and most people aren't able to envision the type of care we're talking about." Auberger encourages every person he can to write letters to members of Congress, senators and other politicians who can have an impact on the future of people with disabilities. "When you do that, you raise a level of consciousness,” he said. "You don't have to mention (the numbers), just the concept. "The logic is the problem. When parents are doing (personal attendant care), for free, it doesn't have to be skilled. When Medicaid pays for that same care, a nurse has to do it.” Statistics provided by the American Health Care Association show the average lifespan on an individual in a nursing home is 21 months. "You can't convince me there's quality care in a nursing home," Auberger said. "We (at Atlantis) are non-medical personal attendants. When the staff goes into a home, the person in that home is the boss. We do things the way they want us to do them. "People don't have to give up their power to able-bodied people. But it's okay to share the power." Although many members of the disabled community have made endorsements this election year, ADAPT chooses to remain rather neutral - for a change. "Don't pick a side,” Auberger said. "As soon as you pick a side and that side loses, you now have an enemy on the other side. That's been real effective tor us. We'll rate candidates on disability issues, but we won't endorse anyone. "If there's a disability issue in Colorado, legislators call here, the media calls here. We're a powerful entity in this state. As hundreds of ADAPT activists confronted the annual conference of the nursing home industry in San Francisco October 19-21, the power of this entity spread toward the Pacific. Persons interested in more information about ADAPT can call Auberger or Wade Blank at (303) 733-9324 (voice and TDD). INSERT AT CENTER OF PAGE: Across the top in bold letters the word "ATLANTIS" and below that ADAPT's new Free Our People logo, the wheelchair access symbol with it's arms raised above its head breaking chains that are bound to it's wrists. Above this figure, in a semi-circular pattern the words "Free Our People" and below, also in a semi-circular pattern, "ADAPT"