NEW YORK, NEW YORK– [Excerpt from Inclusion Daily Express] Robbie Cunningham would like to live independently but sees no way to get out of the Coler-Goldwater Specialty Hospital & Nursing Facility, his home for the past four years. "I'm not sick," he said. "I'm a quadriplegic."
In the nursing home, he explained, "I have tremendous constraints on what I can do. I would like to choose what kind of food I eat, when I eat and when I go to bed."
Cunningham, 52, feels safe at Coler, a sprawling Roosevelt Island facility, but he doesn't feel free. "As long as I'm alive, I want to keep moving," said the Manhattan makeup artist, who was paralyzed from the neck down in a diving accident seven years ago.
According to a 1999 Supreme Court decision, people with disabilities have the right to live in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs. But Cunningham and thousands of other relatively young people institutionalized by strokes, heart attacks, neuromuscular disorders and traumatic injuries are trapped in nursing homes — segregated from society by bureaucratic bungling and foot-dragging.
Entire article:
Younger people are increasingly trapped in nursing homes
http://www.InclusionDaily.com/news/2011/red/0701b.htm
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