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here it is
VALPARAISO | Leona Townley likes to get around town.
She goes to church three or four times a week, to the Goodwill store,
Kmart, the library, her doctor and her dentist, and to visit friends in
the hospital or at nursing homes in the city. She always seems to be on
the go in the motorized wheelchair she's been confined to for most of
her life.
Only 50 years old, Townley has cerebral palsy. It has taken away her
ability to walk and do certain things with her hands, but it has not
taken away her spirit of independence. Unable to take care of herself
physically because of the disease, she has lived at the Valparaiso Care
and Rehabilitation Center, on Wall Street, for the past 25 years.
>From that location she drives her wheelchair to the Vale Church of
Christ on Silhavy Road, the library in downtown Valparaiso and recently
attended a funeral at Moeller Funeral Home on Roosevelt Road. She puts
more miles on her wheelchair than some people do on their cars.
In fact, she is an example of someone who fights for the rights of the
handicapped and for women. Around 1990, she said, she went to the
newspapers when a fast food restaurant refused to serve her at the
drive-through window in her wheelchair but it served a man in a
wheelchair. She has not had a problem getting service since.
Everything changed last week after the center's new management called a
meeting of all the patients and told them, effective immediately, no one
would be allowed to leave the grounds by wheelchair on their own. Anyone
violating the policy would be given 30 days to move out of the facility.
Townley said American Senior Communities took over the center Jan. 1 and
is concerned about the liability if one of the patients should be in an
accident after leaving the grounds. The company's Chief Operating
Officer Dan Benson did not return a call seeking comment.
"I could have an accident in here just as much as I could in the
street," Townley said.
She is one of several patients affected by the new policy, which she
said restricts them to certain areas on the center's grounds. She said a
similar effort to restrict movement of patients was made 12 or 15 years
ago. A state ombudsman came to the facility and worked out a deal to
allow limited trips away from the grounds.
Over time, the rules were relaxed to the point that patients have had
free access to go anywhere for some time. Having her freedom curtailed
has raised concerns on her behalf from friends, one of whom told The
Times that Townley's determination to attend church services even in bad
weather "encourages us all."
An ombudsman is again scheduled to meet with the management and the
patients this week to let them know if the restrictions can continue. If
they remain in place, Townley said she will look for another place to
live.
"I won't be able to go out until then," she said.
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