Private facilities are not held accountable
By Carolyn Tuft and Joe Mahr
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Monday, Jun. 12 2006
Gary Oheim lay in a group home as bed sores eroded his skin to the bone and
filled his room with the smell of rotting flesh.
The smell should have been a warning sign to the state caseworker assigned to
do monthly checks on the mentally retarded man. But the caseworker had been to
the privately run facility only once in three months, the state said, and then
didn't check on Oheim.
The Department of Mental Health didn't learn about Oheim's condition until a
worker in that southwest Missouri home complained. By then it was too late.
Twenty days later, Oheim died in a Bolivar hospital. He was 40.
Missouri had failed to follow its own rules to supervise the private companies
and nonprofit agencies it entrusts with the vast majority of clients requiring
full-time care.
By Carolyn Tuft and Joe Mahr
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Monday, Jun. 12 2006
Gary Oheim lay in a group home as bed sores eroded his skin to the bone and
filled his room with the smell of rotting flesh.
The smell should have been a warning sign to the state caseworker assigned to
do monthly checks on the mentally retarded man. But the caseworker had been to
the privately run facility only once in three months, the state said, and then
didn't check on Oheim.
The Department of Mental Health didn't learn about Oheim's condition until a
worker in that southwest Missouri home complained. By then it was too late.
Twenty days later, Oheim died in a Bolivar hospital. He was 40.
Missouri had failed to follow its own rules to supervise the private companies
and nonprofit agencies it entrusts with the vast majority of clients requiring
full-time care.
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