Metro
LAS VEGAS SUN 3A
a Friday, October 7, 1994

[Image] Woman (Earnestine Taylor) raises her power fist and mouth open in a yell. She is wearing numerous ADAPT power fist buttons.
[Image caption] ERNESTINE TAYLOR, above, says she "fought like hell" to get out of nursing homes where she was placed after a stroke Now she lives on her own.

[Image]
[Image caption] Mike Eakin, right, 32, suffers from muscular dystrophy and lives at home with his parents. He fears ending up in a nursing home.

[Headline] ADAPT plans protest at Hawaii convention
[Subheading] Disabled rights group to fight for funds
By Bob Shemeligian
LAS VEGAS SUN

This year's American Health Care Association convention in Las Vegas is over, but thoughts of next year's convention -scheduled for Hawaii - is already in the minds of hundreds of disabled demonstrators.

"We'll be there (in Hawaii)," said Scott Heinzman of American Disabled for Attendant Program Today (ADAPT), who-like hundreds of other protesters-wore a lei around his neck Thursday afternoon.

"ADAPT will be there," Heinzman said at a protest at the Las Vegas Convention Center. "If we have to hold fundraisers all year to pay for our trip, we'll do it."

Mike Auberger, founder of the Denver-based disabled rights group, promised that many members of ADAPT will make the trip to Hawaii.

"You can put up barricades, and those don't stop us," he said. "You can try for a restraining order, and that doesn't stop us. So 3,000 miles of water isn't going to stop us."

Susan White, the mother of a child with a disability, said, "If I have to scrape tin cans off the ground, or auction things off, I'll be there in Hawaii. Sooner or later, AHCA will get the message."

The message that ADAPT has been hammering home during several Las Vegas demonstrations is that the group wants AHCA to support a resolution calling for the reallocation of Medicaid funds from nursing homes to home care for the disabled.

Officials of AHCA, a trade association representing nursing homes and rehabilitation centers, argue that the demonstrators are barking up the wrong tree.

Instead of going after nursing home funds, which are already limited, AHCA officials say, ADAPT should work with MICA and lobby Congress for national health care reform.

"We believe additional re-sources need to be made available," said Dave Kyllo, AHCA spokesman.

But Auberger contends that it's unrealistic to expect Congress to come up with more money for long-term care, and it's up to the nursing home industry to change.

On Thursday afternoon, nearly 300 disabled demonstrators sealed off every access to the Las Vegas Convention Center.

"We've symbolically declared the Convention Center to be a nursing home to send a message to AHCA," said ADAPT member Robert Kafka.

Metro Police officers physically removed 165 protesters from roadways and from entrances to the Convention Center.

And again, for the third day in a row, scores of demonstrators were arrested, charged with unlawful assembly, and processed at a nearby temporary detention facility.

But, it seems, nothing that AHCA officials say will change the opinions of the demonstrators - many of whom have spent long years in nursing homes.

Claude Holcomb, a 34-year-old demonstrator, who suffers from cerebral palsy, said he spent more than a third of his lire in a nursing home in New Britain, Conn.

Speaking to a reporter by pointing to letters on a board one at a time, Holcomb said, "I was in a nursing home for 13 years. I've been out 11 years. I never want to go back."

Diane Coleman, who like Holcomb and most of the other demonstrators is confined to a wheelchair, said she lives in Tennessee, a state that is ranked second from the bottom in terms of funding for home care services for the disabled.

"In the South, African-Americans had to use separate drinking fountains, separate rest rooms and separate restaurants," Coleman said. "We're forced into separate places to live. It's the ultimate form of segregation."

Earlier a Metro Police official estimated the cost to police the demonstrations would top $100,000. Auberger suggested that local officials "go after AHCA" for the money.

"The average nursing home makes a net profit of $670,000 a year," Auberger said "They (MICA members) are staying at the (Las Vegas) Hilton, and we're staying four, five, six to a room at the Union Plaza."

AHCA officials dispute these figures. They say that the nursing home industry profit margin normally runs at 2 or 3 percent.

[Image] ADAPT Marchers head up to the Hilton Hotel. This was AHCA's main hotel. The last person has a sign on the back of their chair that reads "I'd rather be in jail than die in a nursing home." A man, Zak Zakarewsky, walks beside. Caption reads: ADAPT members head for food and gaming at the Las Vegas Hilton after the protests. They had to leave their pickets behind.
[Image] ADAPT MEMBERS head for food and gaming at the Las Vegas Hilton after the protests. They had to leave their pickets behind.
PHOTOS BY STEVE MARCUS / STAFF

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