Meanwhile, the state increased the reimbursement rates for kids in nursing homes and said parents were free to send their children there—even though the Miami Herald recently found that 130 children have died in geriatric nursing homes since 2006, a higher rate than among children cared for at home.
Between July 2011 and June 2012, the "utilization review" contractor reported saving the state nearly $45 million by cutting home health services. That's one reason why Abdel is now part of a class-action lawsuit alleging that Florida has systematically discriminated against disabled children by refusing to provide them with needed services at home. Lawyers for the plaintiffs estimate that Abdel is one of about 250 kids, many of them foster children, who don't belong in geriatric nursing homes but are stuck there, and that there are as many as 5,000 kids in Florida at high risk of ending up institutionalized because the state refuses to pay for home care.
The US Department of Justice has also taken notice. Threatening to sue, the Justice Department warned the state last September that it had "planned, structured, and administered a system of care that has led to the unnecessary segregation and isolation of children, often for many years, in nursing facilities."
"They are not given any toys or games in their room. It's horrible. There's no other word for it. It keeps me up at night."
The DOJ said that by placing medically fragile kids, including infants, in nursing homes, Florida was depriving them of education, socialization, and stimulation they desperately needed. "They're not given any toys or games in their room," Dietz, who accompanied DOJ investigators on one of their visits to Florida nursing homes, told me. "All they do is watch TV day in and day out. It's horrible. There's no other word for it. It keeps me up at night."