News Release
More than a year after a state-run institution in Pauls Valley closed, the parent guardian association that filed a lawsuit against the Oklahoma Department of Human Services in an attempt to keep the facility open, dismissed their suit. Jerry Colclazier, the attorney for the PGA of the Southern Oklahoma Resource Center filed to dismiss the lawsuit without prejudice on October 14, 2016.
"We are pleased that legal counsel for the parent guardian association finally put an end to a lawsuit that had no basis in fact and had been sitting dormant on the court's dockets in Garvin County for more than a year," said DHS Director Ed Lake. "Demanding the state keep a large, aging institution open for 10 residents was not reasonable or feasible when those same services are available in communities and funded by the state."
"Oklahomans with intellectual and developmental disabilities no longer have to live in large, state-run institutions. Over the past 25 years, this state has built a robust service system allowing people with disabilities to remain at home with their families and receive services or be cared for in home-like settings by private, specialized agencies. More than 9,000 individuals and their families are currently being served in their homes and communities."
At the time the PGA lawsuit was filed in December 2014, there were only 10 residents left at the facility. DHS had already successfully moved 113 other residents from SORC and had closed the sister facility in Enid, the Northern Oklahoma Resource Center, on Nov. 17, 2014.
DHS filed a motion to dismiss the PGA's lawsuit on February 10, 2015 stating the venue was improper and the suit should be transferred to the Oklahoma County District Court. In the motion to dismiss, DHS also made the point that the lawsuit failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted by law. While the case was pending, the PGA was never granted temporary relief and DHS was not prevented from implementing its plan to close SORC.
The PGA lawsuit contained many factual errors, but the most disturbing was a statement falsely claiming that "18 clients had died unexpectedly after being coerced to leave SORC". There have been four former residents who died in the year following their move from SORC, but only one of the deaths was unexpected and determined by a jury to be the result of negligence by caregivers and medical professionals. The other three residents' deaths were related to their age and their individual medical conditions.
Despite the PGA's lawsuit, DHS worked with parents and guardians of the last 10 residents at SORC and helped them plan for their moves. Not all former residents moved into community homes. Some parents and guardians chose to move their loved ones into nursing facilities or other intermediate care facilities for persons with intellectual disabilities. Some residents moved out of state to be closer to other family members.
When the last resident of SORC moved out on July 10, 2015, Oklahoma joined 14 other states around the country that no longer have state-run public institutions.
History:
The former DHS Human Services Commission voted on November 1, 2012 to close NORCE and SORC and transition the 230 residents into the state's community service system. Both campuses were more than 100 years old and needed millions of dollars in maintenance and infrastructure repairs, as well as expensive modifications to meet current health and safety standards required of licensed facilities.
Soon after the vote to close the facilities, DHS Developmental Disabilities Services began meeting with families to determine where they wanted their loved ones to live and helped them pick service providers and medical professionals. The DHS Office of Client Advocacy assigned an advocate for each resident whose primary responsibility was to ensure that person received the same level of care and services in their new living environment and to ensure their rights were protected.
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