CVTC closure plans leave mother pondering twin sons' fate

After having lived at the Central Virginia Training Center for virtually their entire lives, twins Taylor and Tyler Bryant suddenly find themselves facing a July 1 deadline for a discharge plan.

They won’t move out that soon, but the center is closing in eight years. Their tireless mother, Martha Bryant, who has advocated for them since they were born, is heartbroken.

Her sons, now 18, do not have a future that she can determine outside of constant, 24-hour care –– she believes that they would not survive.

“It’s called the biscuit cutter approach,” said Bryant, who teaches nursing for Amherst County Public Schools. Despite what the 366 patients need individually, all must move into smaller homes that don’t exist yet.

It’s the result of a settlement between Virginia and the federal justice department, which sued contending that patients essentially were being warehoused and not cared for as well as they could be in a smaller setting.

“It’s a tragedy,” Bryant said. “We need health care and they’re taking it away.”

The twins were born prematurely, 11 weeks before their due date, with significant physical and intellectual disabilities. A third child did not survive.

During an interview last week, Bryant turned to check Tyler’s tracheal tube, and a nurse cleared his mucus.

The twins would not get that kind of attention in a smaller setting that has less equipment, Bryant said.

“That’s what I really fear about long-term care –– they [group homes] might not have enough staff,” Bryant said. Without constant monitoring, “he could drown.”

County officials were alarmed by the closure announcement, and not just over the status of the patients. The center offers outpatient care to hundreds of people. It sits on 400 acres of prime real estate, and the county administrator, Clarence Monday, recommended that the Board of Supervisors contact legislators soon, and often, so that they would have a voice in any decisions regarding the land.

Monday met with officials at the center soon after the announcement and talked with Bryant. “She has very good points, and I do think it’s our responsibility to work with state legislators to ensure the continuum of care.”

Bryant says smaller homes with less equipment just can’t serve her sons.

Tyler was hospitalized 10 times last year and eventually doctors realized that they had to remove his gall bladder. “It took five tries,” to diagnose that he had gallstones, because he could not tell doctors his symptoms.

Each twin has monitors that show heart rate and oxygen levels. Each unit has an audible alarm, because neither could ring a bell if they needed help.

They receive physical and speech therapy and special education at the center, because with their level of disability, they cannot be taken to a public school. Whenever they travel, it’s by ambulance.

The nurses are like Bryant’s family. “That’s one of the joys, to have people you know and trust,” she said. One, Darnell Davis, has cared for the boys since they were 5. “You know what that means,” she said, smiling.

Every six months, since they were admitted at the ages of 2 years and 10 months, an interdisciplinary team has evaluated Taylor and Tyler and agreed that “this is the best place,” for long-term expertise and continuity, Bryant said, scoffing at closure settlement.

“And all for saving taxpayers’ dollars,” she said. “I think it’s diagnostic discrimination.

“They are trumping the system,” Bryant said.

“They think that everything on a wheelchair is a restraint,” referring to the justice department and pointing to the boys’ safety belts and equipment to keep their heads upright. “Without special braces, you can’t have your feet in a wheelchair,” she said. The center has a shop to build custom-designed wheelchairs to meet individual needs.

Gov. Bob McDonnell visited the center last year and met Taylor and Tyler and talked with Bryant.

“In addition to community-based homes, state facilities such as the CVTC offer a critical lifeline to Virginians with behavioral disabilities,” McDonnell wrote Bryant in a letter in September.

McDonnell said he had requested, among other things, $7.1 million for the five state-operated centers, four of which now will be closed under the federal settlement. It will require $2 billion to implement, with nearly half coming from the federal government.