28-year-old woman’s death under investigation

I have been thinking more than ever about where Charlie will live as an adult since hearing about the services offered in different states at last Friday’s IACC meeting. The pressing, pressing, pressing need for staff with appropriate training, for facilities, and for much much more was more than made apparent—the November 10th death of 28-year-old Tara O’Leary highlights just how pressing these needs are.

Tara O’Leary had severe developmental disabilities and was a client in a community care residence in Hunterdon County in central New Jersey. Her death is being investigated by both the state Department of Human Services and the Hunterdon County Prosecutor’s Office. According to yesterday’s FOX News, O’Leary had brain deformities, scoliosis, and other severe medical conditions. The residence where O’Leary and two other women lived was funded by the New Jersey’s Department of Human Services’ Division of Developmental Disabilities. On September 11, O’Leary was removed from the home: According to her cousin, Eileen Devlin, medical records said that O’Leary (who was 4′10″) weighed 95 pounds at a doctor’s visit in September 2007. In August 2008, an aunt, Patricia O’Leary, saw her niece, who was “gaunt, with unwashed hair and shoes on the wrong feet.” O’Leary had not had a guardian since the death of her father in 2005 and her aunt asked to be her legal guardian.

Once she was taken from the home, Tara O’Leary lived in an institution for a little over a week before she was taken to Hunterdon Medical Center suffering from dehydration, malnutrition and bedsores and septic shock, Devlin said. She weighed just 48 pounds at check-in.

Devlin said that with a feeding tube, her cousin’s weight rose to more than 70 pounds by November, but her overall medical condition did not improve. She died Nov. 10, days after she, Patricia O’Leary and another cousin became her legal guardians and decided to take her off life support.

The other two women who lived with O’Leary in the house—one of whom had also lost a dangerous amount of weight—have been removed and are now healthy. The woman’s case manager has been suspended.

O’Leary relatives noted that, after the death of her father, they were only able to visit her occasionally and were “never allowed to see her in the home where she was living _ or even to know exactly where it was”—a potential violation of state policy.

As noted in yesterday’s MyCentralJersey.com, the prosecutor’s office is also looking into “the circumstances surrounding the quality of care and death of a disabled adult.” Jennifer Velez, commissioner of the Department of Human Services, made this statement:

“This death is unacceptable on many levels, and we’re doing all we can to scrutinize every aspect and prevent tragedies such as this from occurring again.”

A roundabout sort of statement—so some “aspects” relating to the Tara O’Leary’s care were not being “scrutinized”—-that seems, more than sadly, too evident.