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Province mulling fate of development centre

Protesters push for group home funding

By: Mary Agnes Welch

Posted: 04/1/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

PHIL.HOSSACK@FREEPRESS.MB.CA Enlarge Image

Protesters at Legislative Building Wednesday call for the Manitoba Developmental Centre to be closed.

The Selinger government is about to decide the fate of the Manitoba Developmental Centre -- a sprawling institution for the mentally disabled that protesters said Wednesday must be mothballed immediately.

About 40 protesters gathered at the Legislative Building to pressure the NDP to shut down the Portage la Prairie facility and better fund group homes that allow people to live in the community.

MDC discharging residents

It's home to nearly 290 people with severe intellectual disabilities, including brain damage and autism. Some also have a dual-diagnosis of a mental illness like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. At its peak in the mid-1980s, before progressive thinking began to integrate disabled people into the community, MDC had about 1,100 residents.

The average age of the residents is 56. Only about three new people are admitted a year, all by court order. Another 10 to 15 are discharged into community living group homes, and the province said it would discharge more if it had the right staff and resources outside MDC, something that takes time to develop.

Since 2005, the province has fast-tracked the move toward community living and it's likely MDC will run out of residents in about a decade -- not fast enough for some who say the NDP must finally stop warehousing the mentally disabled in institutions. Advocates for the disabled consider it a human rights issue, and argue MDC's funding could be better spent on bolstering aid so that even the most severely disabled can live in the community.

"It can be done and it is being done," said Harry Wolbert, co-chairman of the Manitoba League of Persons with Disabilities and one of the protest's organizers.

The province has quietly convened a working group to decide whether to shut down MDC, use it for drug rehabilitation or some other sort of residential program or keep part of it open for people whose disabilities make it impossible for them to live in community group homes. The working group is expected to meet for the first time in about two weeks and will also decide what might happen to 700 highly trained MDC staff.

Ron Dirr's sister, who was deprived of oxygen at birth, has lived at MDC since the age of 18. She thrived there, so when staff approached Dirr about moving her to a group home in St. James, Dirr said it sounded like a natural next step.

But staff at the group home were undertrained university students and couldn't handle his sister. New doctors fiddled with her medication and she fell back into her old physically aggressive and emotional ways, said Dirr. She couldn't cope with the group home's lack of structure, and Dirr said he was left out of important decisions about her care even though he knew her best.

"It was pandemonium," he said. "They undid in two years what it took MDC 30 years to do."

After a legal struggle, Dirr convinced the courts to send his sister back to MDC, where she now lives in a two-storey apartment building on the campus and comes and goes as she pleases.

"Community living must be available. It's a must," said Dirr. "That being said, the institution has a role to play. There are people like my sister who can't survive without that structure, the borders and limits. She's doing fantastic now."

Manitoba is one of three provinces that still has institutions for the severely mentally disabled. A year ago, Ontario closed its last one, which prompted community living advocates to mark the anniversary with Wednesday's protest.

Though it's a huge, 100-acre complex with two dozen buildings, MDC maintains a remarkably low profile. The province has mentioned it only once in more than a decade, when it issued a brief press release about a $40 million investment in the facility's 23 buildings to bring them up to snuff.

But Family Services Minister Gord Mackintosh put the breaks on that cash in 2006 when he took over the portfolio. Only about $5 million has been spent, and Mackintosh has asked for a longer-term plan for MDC and how it fits with a community living model.

maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 1, 2010 A9

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