Federal Judge Rules D.C. Violated Rights of Disabled Seniors Seeking to Return Home from Nursing Facilities
A 14-year-long legal battle came to an end in the final hours of 2024 when a federal judge ruled that Washington, D.C. violated the rights of disabled seniors seeking to transition out of nursing facilities and back to their own homes.
The case began in 2010 when thousands of nursing home residents joined a class-action lawsuit, claiming that District-run care facilities denied them the opportunity and necessary information to move to community-based, at-home care covered by Medicaid.
One of the plaintiffs, Tanya Michelle DeVore, has been in a nursing facility in Maryland since May 2023, following a stroke. She has been fighting to return to her condo in D.C. for over a year. Her son, Arthur “Tony” Medley, travels daily from D.C. to check on her and is concerned about her deteriorating health. “I’ve been really, really on a mission [to bring her home] because I just don’t want anything further to happen to my mom,” Medley told NPR’s Morning Edition.
DeVore is among thousands who will now need the District to provide home health aides following the ruling by Judge Paul L. Friedman. Many of the affected individuals, like DeVore, were moved to out-of-state facilities due to a lack of available beds in D.C.
According to Kelly Bagby, lead counsel for the AARP Foundation, which represents the plaintiffs, the District’s nursing facilities have been at full capacity for years. By 2020, the District began relocating residents to Maryland, which Bagby argues exacerbated the issue of institutionalization. “There are roughly 2,700 nursing facility beds in the District of Columbia, and by the time we got to the next trial in 2020, they started shipping people to Maryland,” Bagby said.
The District has until the end of January to file an appeal in the case.
Reference News :- D.C. nursing home residents win legal fight to opt for Medicaid covered, at-home care
