The Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC) was a large state school in California, United States for people with developmental disabilities, and is located in Eldridge in Sonoma County. Former names for this hospital include California Home for the Care and Training of Feeble Minded Children (1883); Sonoma State Home (1909); Sonoma State Hospital (1953); and Sonoma Developmental Center starting in 1986. The center closed on 31 December 2018.
History
Founding It opened at its current location on November 24, 1891, though it had existed at previous locations in White Sulphur Springs near Vallejo, California starting in 1883; a location in Fasking Park in Alameda County; and another location in Santa Clara (near the intersection of Market and Washington Street) from 1885 to 1891. In 1902, Governor Henry T. Gage ordered an investigation by Frederick Winslow Hatch, the General Superintendent of State Hospitals in California for Dr. William M. Lawlor, the Superintendent of the California Home for the Care and Training of Feeble Minded Children. Lawlor was charged with the cruel treatment of patients under his care, including children. Dozens died at this hospital in an outbreak of Spanish influenza in 1918.
Involuntary sterilization California was the third state to pass a compulsory sterilization law in 1909, the Asexualization Act. F.O. Butler was the superintendent of Sonoma State home starting in 1918. He believed that sterilization benefited both the individuals and society as a whole, Both through public promotion and actual operations, he was largely responsible for thousands of sterilizations. He himself is estimated to have performed at least 1000 sterilizations throughout his career. During his time as superintendent, Sonoma acted as a kind of "revolving operating room." In an attempt to expand beyond the institution (and get around a legal loophole), Sonoma admitted patients solely for the purpose of being sterilized and then released. According to a study conducted by Paul Popenoe, between the years 1922–1925, 25% of those females sterilized fell into this category. This aggressive approach is likely the reason for Sonoma's comparatively high number of sterilizations. Sonoma was said to have sterilized more "mental defectives" than any other institution in the world.
Human experimentation Often overlooked, Sonoma conducted dangerous tests and trials on patients into the 1960s. Testing in mental institution alleviated the compensation and consent required for researches. Such treatments, including radiation dosing experiments, resulted in countless injuries and deaths that are still being investigated. A story in the October, 1952 issue of the Sonoma Index-Tribune, described the test of a live polio vaccine on "61 boys and girls (who) took the new vaccine in a glass of chocolate milk … regarding it merely as an extra 'treat'." The Index-Tribune article clarifies that parents of the young subjects had given their permission for the tests.
Abuse in the 1990s through 2010s In the 1990s, after a teenage boy was found injured and lying in a pool of blood in a shower, a class-action lawsuit resulted in a settlement that stepped up the exodus of residents from developmental centers.
2000 citations In 2000, state health inspectors accused Sonoma of numerous violations that resulted in deaths. The state Department of Health Services has issued at least 15 citations, carrying penalties totaling $142,800.This includes an incident where a female staff member sexually fondled a male patient, and two instances in which staffers hit residents. Because of the state citations, as well as extensive inspection reports, the federal Health Care Financing Agency refused to recertify the center and moved to cut the flow of $3 million in monthly Medicaid dollars. These violations came less than three years after federal inspectors documented deaths and unsanitary conditions in California's homes in 1997. One man died of an overdose of anti-depressants in 1999. The coroners could not tell whether the death was a homicide, suicide or accident. The hospital was cited for failure to prevent harm. Another incident was the 1999 death of a woman from toxic levels of opiates. In March 2001, five employees were suspended during an investigation into abuse. One of these abuses were "beat down parties" where employees would choose a resident and assault them. Other cases included staff members humiliating and slapping residents.
In August 2001, a new bill required development centers to immediately report all resident "deaths and serious injuries of unknown origin" to their local law enforcement agency. This is after a 1999 investigation by the Index-Tribune found that:"the facility had hired inadequately trained, under-qualified, unsupervised investigators; that site administrators were called into incident scenes before investigators arrived; and that a conflict of interest existed because investigators were employed by the same facility they were supposed to investigate. Some employees within the facility indicated that many incidents were never reported, in part because staff members were afraid of retaliation."In April 2002, Nicholas Turley, a 14 year old, collapsed at Sonoma Developmental Center. He died at the hospital 37 hours later. Chief deputy coroner Will Wallman said toxicology results indicated that Turley died from an overdose of phenobarbital, a barbiturate that is commonly used as a sedative and to control seizures. The lab report showed that Turley's system had 75 milligrams of phenobarbital per liter of blood—nearly twice as much as what is considered safe. The investigation was closed with no answers."It's hard to get that level in a person's system. Phenobarbital is . . . slow to uptake and slow to release. Administered twice a day (as in Turley's case), it should balance out to about 35 milligrams per liter... Natural, homicide, accident, suicide - we don't have enough to pin it on any of those four, so it's 'could not be determined."
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