Mitt, it's time to pay a visit
CENTERVILLE -- If Governor Mitt Romney is passing through Massachusetts tomorrow, he might want to drop by Cape Cod for a fresh display of those executive skills that have attracted so much comment after Hurricane Katrina.
There will be no photo opportunity this time. The folks who need his help are not evacuees from the Gulf Coast; they just live and work on the Cape.
The Fernandez family is caught in a Massachusetts whirlwind, a bureaucratic twister that has left a severely retarded teenager without adequate care and an emotionally depleted mother without respite. It is just the sort of management challenge Romney is peddling as his strong suit, as he crisscrosses the country testing his viability for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.
As long as he is still governor of Massachusetts, Romney ought to demonstrate what he can do for Maribel Fernandez and her son, Andres.
Andres is 19, a young man so disabled that he is unable to bathe or dress himself. His epilepsy triggers frequent seizures. His incontinence necessitates diapers. Without his mother's constant supervision, he would climb on the porch roof or walk into the street with no awareness of the dangers.
He is enrolled as a special education student at Barnstable High School.
''No one could think that is the right placement," said Michael Turner, a lawyer who arranged tomorrow's meeting with officials from the town, the state Department of Education, and the state Department of Mental Retardation to urge them to work together to find Andres a slot in a residential school equipped to meet his overwhelming needs.
Maribel Fernandez is hopeful, but months of wrangling about who is obligated to pay for her son's care have left her less than confident. She has been pleading for help since January, when she and her son moved here to join her husband, who had been hired as golf course superintendent of Willowbend, the country club in Mashpee that was built by Paul Fireman, chairman and chief executive officer of Reebok.
Maribel Fernandez has whiplash from being bounced between caseworkers and special educators, between bureaucrats and lawyers; it's the kind of red tape that Romney promised to eliminate for Katrina evacuees.
By July, hospitalized for a flare-up of the back problems caused by the daily lifting of her grown son, Maribel refused to be discharged until she had a commitment that she would get some help at home. The promised services never materialized.
''That's because the term 'respite care' is a joke on Cape Cod," Turner said. ''There is none to be had. It is hard work on difficult, emotional cases. Who is going to do it for the amount of money the state is willing to pay? In reality, no one."
Maribel Fernandez knows that now. This week, when she heard that funding is available for her to have help at home, she learned that no one could be found to provide it. ''I love my son. I have taken care of him all his life. It is hard to admit that I cannot give him what he needs anymore," she said tearfully. ''I am just looking for some help."
William Butler is legal counsel for the Barnstable schools. Unable to discuss the particulars of the case, he said, he ''can certainly share the family's frustration."
''It is not easy to negotiate the labyrinth of DOE, DMR, Special Ed, and whatever human services might be involved. It has to be frustrating," he said.
Andres is the second of three sons in the Fernandez family. The others are in college together, back in Illinois. Their mother was not there when her youngest moved into his freshman dorm. She expects to miss Parents' Weekend next month, too.
She shouldn't have to. It is easy for state and local officials to exonerate themselves for their neglect of the Fernandez family. They can go to that meeting tomorrow and do the right thing. If the governor is in the neighborhood, he ought to stop by and make them.
Eileen McNamara is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at mcnamara@globe.com. 
