The deaths of 17 developmentally disabled people transferring or already transferred out of two large state-run institutions are raising questions about whether the closing of the centers put residents’ health at risk.
The deaths occurred after the state decided in November 2012 to shutter the facilities in Enid and Pauls Valley over the objections of some of the residents’ guardians and parents. Almost all of the nearly 230 adult residents were to move to small, privately owned “community homes,” where services are offered by various providers.
State Sen. Patrick Anderson, R-Enid, said he wants to know whether the impending closure of the facilities and the residents’ transition into community homes contributed to the deaths.
Anderson wrote a letter to Attorney General Scott Pruitt on Oct. 24, one day after the most recent death. He called for a review of the deaths, which occurred in 2013 and 2014. The residents began moving out of the Northern Oklahoma Resource Center of Enid, or NORCE, and the Southern Oklahoma Resource Center in Pauls Valley, or SORC, in March 2013.
Among those who died, seven were living at NORCE, two were living at SORC, and eight had transitioned into community homes.
By comparison, there were seven total deaths at NORCE and SORC in 2012, four in 2011 and one in 2010, at the Enid facility, state officials said. The deaths in 2013 and 2014 occurred as the population of residents and staffing levels were being reduced.
Anderson said in an interview that he wrote the letter after learning of an intellectually and developmentally disabled man, Gary Wilkinson, who died nine days after being transferred from the Enid center to a community home on Oct. 14.
Wilkinson's guardian and uncle, Carlton Wilkinson of Duncan, said his nephew had come down with pneumonia before being transferred out of NORCE and was hospitalized. After recovering and being sent back to NORCE, the 40-year-old Wilkinson, who had been disabled since childhood, was transitioned out of the facility to a community home in Guthrie, his uncle said.
However, days later, he again came down with pneumonia and was unable to recover, Carlton Wilkinson said.
Calling the 17 deaths over 22 months “abnormally high,” Anderson said is he asking Pruitt to determine why the deaths occurred to ensure the safety of other people in community homes.
“I don’t know about the individual circumstances, and I’m not trying to politicize this, but if it had been 17 foster children, people would be outraged,” Anderson said in an interview. “I certainly hope Attorney General Pruitt will agree to look into the situation and report his general findings.”
Pruitt’s spokesman, Aaron Cooper, said Pruitt has received the letter and is reviewing it.
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