Man with cerebral palsy forbidden from returning to longtime county group home – Loudoun Times-Mirror

For more than a month, 45-year-old Alex Scott, who has cerebral palsy, was forced to stay at Inova Hospital in Lansdowne after the county would not allow him to return to his group home of 23 years in Sterling without a feeding tube.

Since Scotts longtime caregiver at the county-run Kentwell Group Home left in 2014, Scott's family claims the county through the facilitys new caregiver has engaged in an ongoing pattern of discrimination against him because of his disability.

Loudoun, through its authorized agents, have committed several acts of discrimination against Alex designed to either force him to obtain a feeding tube or to deny him access to the housing available to him at Kentwell, notes a complaint filed in Circuit Court by the familys attorney, Leesburg-based John Whitbeck.

On May 5, Scott and his family landed a slight victory at an emergency hearing after they filed an emergency injunction against the county to return Scott home. Although a Loudoun judge denied his familys request to quickly return Scott to his group home, the judge ordered Kentwell Group Home staff to undergo training over the next two weeks in hopes of eventually bringing Scott back. The hearing came after Medicaid stopped funding Scotts hospital stay.

Last weekend, Scott was released to a nursing home in Clarke County where he is now awaiting return to the Kentwell facility.

Scotts family and attorney say the feeding tube and staff training is unnecessary and would like to see him return home as soon as possible.

We are awaiting for the completion of training necessary for the group home to be able to feed him, even though we contend that theres no training necessary, Whitbeck told the Times-Mirror. Its the same feeding thats been going on for 23 years. Nonetheless, the judges ruling was to the give the county time to train staff to properly feed him with the goal of returning him to the group home within the next couple weeks."

Scott, who has had cerebral palsy since birth, is unable to speak or feed himself and has difficulty swallowing. Feeding Scott takes as long as 30 minutes, according to the complaint.

After Scott was admitted to Inova Hospital on March 31 for having low levels of oxygen, the complaint states that about one week into his stay his family was advised by Loudoun County officials he could not return to Kentwell unless he obtained a feeding tube.

Scotts physicians, however, have said that a feeding tube is not only unnecessary, but would be dangerous for his stomach and intestines.

His physicians have also argued Scott requires no more care and feeding than he has required over the past 23 years and that returning to Kentwell is the best option for him.

But Scotts family says his latest hospital stay wasn't the first.

According to the complaint, from 2014 to 2015, Scott was hospitalized by his Kentwell caregivers 19 times. Prior to that, he was rarely if ever hospitalized.

Scotts caregiver and Kentwell say the hospitalizations were due to aspiration pneumonia -- a lung infection that develops after inhaling food or liquid into your lungs.

Yet a review of Scotts medical records during the period of continual hospitalization found that all of the hospitalizations were for medical issues other than aspirational pneumonia, according to the complaint.

Scotts family says the Kentwell caregivers used hospitalization of Alex to avoid what the family believes to be nothing more than the extreme inconvenience of feeding him.

County Attorney Leo Rogers maintains the county did not engage in any pattern of discrimination against Scott and noted that at the emergency hearing on Friday that Director of Mental Health Services Margaret Graham also denied any wrongdoing against Scott.

Rogers said the county plans to follow what was proposed by Graham at the hearing to evaluate Scott and train her staff. Then they will make a decision as to if it is appropriate at that time to bring him back to the group home, he said.

The county attorney added his return will entirely depend on his medical condition and the ability of the staff at the group home to care for him.

Rogers stressed the county is not under an order to bring Scott back to the group home but simply to follow the judges order.

This is about the safety and care of Alex, not whether or not hes at a group home or whether or not hes in a nursing home or whether or not hes at the hospital, Rogers said. ... It may also be the case he can come back to the group home. But, no, were not under an order to bring him back in two weeks. What the provision of the order is, were going to follow through on the plan that we said we were in the next two weeks.

In the meantime, Scotts sister Samantha Tunador has been using social media to document her brothers experience at the hospital using the hashtag #TakeAlexHome.

While we are disappointed Alex is not going home today, we are encouraged that Loudoun County has been ordered by the court to take specific measures to make sure Alex goes home as soon as possible, Tunador wrote in a Facebook post on the 37th day of her brothers hospital stay.

If the county fails to take the steps outlined by the judges order in the next two weeks, the court ruled Scotts family will have the opportunity to file another emergency injunction.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly listed the Kentwell Group Home as Kentwood.

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Man with cerebral palsy forbidden from returning to longtime county group home - Loudoun Times-Mirror