Brain injury patients sue state

Catherine Hutchinson strolled in from gardening one day 11 years ago and collapsed in her Attleboro home, suffering a brain-stem stroke that left the single mother of two paralyzed from the neck down and mute.

Yesterday, in a written statement composed with the aid of caretakers and special computers, Hutchinson said that her life in nursing homes since the stroke has heaped misery on her mis fortune.

"I feel isolated from the real world. I have little to no privacy. I don't want to live this way, and I can't think of anyone else who would," she said in the statement, read during a press conference in Boston.

Hutchinson, 54, is part of a class- action lawsuit filed yesterday against the state and the Patrick administration alleging that the Commonwealth has failed to provide community- based care for brain-injury patients. As a result, the plaintiffs say, thousands of severely handicapped residents face a lifetime of nursing home confinement in violation of federal law.

The lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Springfield on behalf of four plaintiffs and the Brain Injury Association of Massachusetts, continues the debate over the extent to which the government must attempt to normalize the lives of people with the most profound disabilities.

Advocates for patients said one-quarter of the approximately 8,200 Massachusetts residents with severe brain injuries have asked to be moved to community-based care, where they could live with friends and family but have access to trained caregivers.

The advocates say they filed the lawsuit as a last resort after decades of discussions with six governors, including Deval Patrick, failed to produce results.

Patrick administration officials said they would review the lawsuit and respond in court. Dr. JudyAnn Bigby, health and human services secretary, said the state is committed to providing the best available care to brain-injury patients and is in the process of implementing several new programs that would increase their community- based options.

"Providing comprehensive services in the most appropriate setting to persons with disabilities, including brain injuries, is a priority for the administration," she said. "Overall, the [state] spends over $900 million per year in community-based, long-term-care services."

But lawyers for the plaintiffs said the state's unwillingness to pay for community-based care to every brain injury patient who requests it has left thousands of handicapped people living in virtual isolation.

Nickie Chandler, guardian of plaintiff Raymond Puchalski, 58, of Stoughton said Puchalski's time at a rehabilitation hospital has been miserable.

"Ray's life now consists of several rooms off a locked hallway," she said. "He needs and wants to be in his community, with his family and with me. We need him, too."

In the lawsuit, four plaintiffs are listed: Hutchinson; Puchalski; Glen Jones, 57, of Worcester; and Nathaniel Wilson, 54, of Springfield. The lawsuit, however, seeks to represent all Bay State brain injury patients residing in nursing homes. A federal judge will ultimately decide who can join the class action.

The plaintiffs do not seek any monetary damages. Instead, their lawsuit calls on the state to institute a policy within five years that provides community-care options for all patients with brain injuries, regardless of the severity of their disability.

Patrick administration officials said they took the plaintiffs' previous overtures seriously.

Yesterday, they released a three-page letter from Bigby to the plaintiffs' lawyers dated April 6, 2007, a response to allegations that several Bay State residents had been wrongly denied community care.

"We ask that you provide sufficient information about the situations of those individuals, so we can look into those allegations and duly address them," Bigby wrote.

She went on to detail the steps the state was taking to offer disabled patients adequate care, includ ing seeking federal funds to expand community services.

But the plaintiffs then cut off dialogue on the issue, said Juan Martinez, a spokesman for Health and Human Services. "Their response was to let us know they were suing the Commonwealth," Martinez said.

A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Steven J. Schwartz of the Center for Public Representation, said he viewed Bigby's response as "a flat-out rejection" of their requests that recalled previous negotiations on the issue. "Everything that's in the letter was told to us by the Romney people last year," Schwartz said.

The case may take years to litigate.

Meanwhile, Hutchinson hopes that her difficult existence will ease some day.

"Sometimes I feel I am in prison for a crime I did not commit," she wrote. "I need to start living my life, instead of just existing in a wheelchair."