NYS Lags on Firing State Workers Who Abuse People with Disabilities

ALBANY — One state worker bit a patient’s ear.Another sent threatening text messages to a female co-worker, according to state records, including one that said: “I’m gonna gut you like a fish blondie. Don’t even try to call the police.”A third, a nurse, left a patient naked and bleeding from a head injury on a bathroom floor, soaking in his own feces.And a fourth knocked a group home resident out of a chair, hit the resident on the back of the head and squirted water from a bottle in the resident’s face.

All of these state employees care for people with developmental disabilities or mental illnesses. They were all found culpable of wrongdoing in internal disciplinary proceedings. But none were fired.