Personal Injury Law

Maryland to Close Rosewood Center After Multiple Reports of Neglect and Abuse

By Jack Lebowitz, Esq. and Vadim Mzhen, Esq.

Rosewood Center, a Maryland facility for the developmentally disabled located in Baltimore County, will close in the next year and a half. The decision by the state to shut down the facility comes in the wake of reports of serious cases of abuse and neglect over the past several years. The decision to shut down Rosewood was announced by Maryland?s Governor Martin O'Malley on January 15.

In December, Maryland?s Office of Health Care Quality reported 130 cases of neglect, abuse, mistreatment, and injuries at the center over an 8-week period. Unnecessary restraints, wrong medication doses, missed feedings of residents that were intubated, and assaults between residents are some of the abusive and neglectful incidents that reportedly occurred.

About 150 people live at Rosewood, which opened in 1888 as the Asylum and Training School for the Feeble Minded. At one point, the center had 3,700 residents.

Last year, however, new admissions were banned at Rosewood three times. Poor conditions at the center have placed it at risk of losing its federal funding.

In February 2007, the Maryland Disability Law Center issued a report about Rosewood that included information about injuries, neglect, and the unnecessary and lengthy isolation of some of its residents.

Workers at Rosewood claim the abuse reports are exaggerated. They worry that residents will be traumatized because they have to leave the facility. Patients will be placed in group homes or released to guardians over the next 18 months.

Nursing home abuse and Neglect
State residential homes are supposed to provide its residents with proper medical and residential care. A failure to do so violates the law and can also be grounds for a nursing home abuse lawsuit.

If you believe that someone you love has been abused or neglected while staying at a residential care facility, you should talk to a Washington D.C. or Maryland nursing home abuse law firm right away. Physical and emotional injuries and even death can result because of the abuse or neglect and the law entitles your injured loved one to nursing abuse compensation.

State to Shutter Home for Disabled, Baltimore Sun.com, January 15, 2008

Related Web Resources:

Rosewood Center: A Demand for Closure, Maryland Disability Law Center, February 1, 2007 (PDF)

Rosewood Center, Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

Full post as published by Maryland Accident Law Blog on January 21, 2008 (boomark / email).