A rural Minnesota hospital sent home a boy with a severe disability even though he exhibited signs of serious malnutrition and bedsores, prompting an investigation by the state Health Department. It’s entirely possible that there’s more to this story than the Strib is reporting, but if it’s even partially true, it’s a troubling sign that medical professionals are still failing to adequately treat people with disabilities. Most physicians and nurses receive little or no training in assessing and treating people with disabilities. And like most everyone else, they have biases about quality of life and disability. Perhaps that’s what happened here; the treating nurse or physician simply assumed that it’s normal for a boy with a severe disability to be malnourished and plagued with bedsores. After all, disability is supposed to be one big ball of suffering.
