THE TENNESSEAN, Friday September 17, 1993

[Headline] Activists vow to disrupt Opryland care convention
By BRAD SCHMITT, staff writer

"If we're blocked out...we'll respond in kind." --Diane Coleman
ADAPT coordinator

A group of about 300 disabled home health care activists has warned that its members might disrupt a nursing home operators convention at Opryland starting next weekend, one of the giant hotel's busiest times.

Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, called ADAPT, likely will try to block Opryland Hotel doors it members are stopped from going into the American Health Care Association convention inside, said Diane Coleman, ADAPT's Tennessee coordinator.

“lf we're blocked out we'll respond in kind," Coleman said yesterday.

Opryland officials said the timing couldn‘t be worse as the convention, slated for Sept. 25-28, comes at the beginning of Country Music Association week, an annual industry event culminating in a nationally broadcast awards show.

But the conflict appears unavoidable.

ADAPT wants to address conventioneers to ask them lo join in ADAPT's efforts to get 25% of all Medicaid dollars for nursing homes diverted to home health care.

But Claudia Askew, spokeswoman for American Health Care Association, said, "The convention program is pretty well set."

The groups have had run-ins for years, with ADAPT protests leading to arrests at the past two annual conventions of the nursing home operators.

In September 1991, ADAPT members blocked doors at the Opryland Hotel during a Tennessee Health Care Association convention.

This year, protesters also plan to link their wheelchairs with chains, Coleman said.

But this year, Metro police will be waiting inside and outside the hotel.

The police intelligence unit will have a suite inside the hotel with surveillance camera monitors, computers, photocopiers, fax machines, phones and radio equipment, Maj. John Manning said.

Detectives have developed computer intelligence files, including
photographs, about some of the protesters expected to show up, information that can quickly be disseminated to hotel security and patrol officers, Manning said.

Police also began a sensitivity program yesterday that teaches officers how to physically arrest disabled people.

"Because of the possibility of inadvertent injury to disabled persons, supervisors will ensure that specialized training is completed by all officers involved," the department's mission statement for the convention says.

Coleman applauded the concern, adding that the safest thing officers can do is ask the protesters what is the best way for an officer to move them.

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