The editorial board of the Macon [GA] Telegram writes that people with developmental disabilities have been hit hard by budget cuts, yet they are largely invisible in the debates over health care and social services.

… due to funding shortages, 7,000 Georgians are on waiting lists for essential services. Many are housed in nursing homes or hospitals settings unable to go home because of physical barriers, from doors not wide enough for a wheelchair to pass through to steps that can’t be navigated due to a lack of community-based services. And many with disabilities are turned away from the work force because of myths that are constantly being perpetuated based on prejudice not fact.

So what to do? First, citizens must be aware of the issues surrounding the developmentally disabled. Those issues are only growing larger as the population climbs from 10 million today to an expected 15 million by 2020.

And before looking in the mirror and thanking God that you are not among the developmentally disabled, think about this: the Baby Boom generation is moving toward retirement. About 2 million elderly and those with disabilities are living in nursing homes now, and somewhere between 10 percent and 40 percent of those don’t need to be housed that way.

If we continue to do the same old thing the same old way, the weight of the Baby Boom generation will crush the system and have long term impacts on more than the elderly and those with disabilities.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 1:27 pm and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, budget, commentary, institutionalization, intellectual/developmental disabilities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.