Care home makes room Disabled man, 19, is aided By Gary Retstein Post-Gazettes Staff Writer

Danny Shirey has been wondering since last year where his next home would be.

The rehabilitation center housing him decided it would not provide long-term care for a young adult with severe impairments from muscular dystrophy.

Shirey's worst fears were that he would be forced into a nursing home with people four to five times older than he. His fondest dreams were that some family would take him in and treat him like a regular member of the household, while tending to his special needs for eating, bathing, dressing, sleeping and more.

Instead of either extreme, the 19-year-old will be moving August 9 from the HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital of Sewickley into the Verland home in Natrona Heights. Verland is a seven-bedroom intermediate-care facility for people who have serious physical challenges but may be fine mentally.

Verland officials and the state Department of Public Welfare agreed to expand the licensed capacity of the home on Hawthorne Street from seven to eight to make room for Shirey, who was bumped ahead of others on Verland's waiting list because of his special circumstances.

"It's still a temporary solution, but it takes the pressure off," Shirey said Friday from the large, motorized wheelchair he uses to get round, one with a ventilator attached to assist his breathing.

HealthSouth officials have been saying since November 1 that a new home would have to be found for Shirey, but no suitable care providers resulted from advertisements and publicity describing his desire for a family setting.

Shirey's father and stepmother of Kiski, Armstrong County, cared for him until he was 9, when insurance coverage providing them with in home nursing help expired because the lifetime costs of the boy's care had already reached $1 million.

Shirey has been in various facilities since then and has been a special education student in the Quaker Valley School District while living at HealthSouth, formerly D.T. Watson Rehabilitation Services.

Representatives of HealthSouth, the welfare department and other agencies worked on Shirey's unusual case for more than a year before settling on Verland, where Chief Executive Officer Carol B. Mitchell said the young man would be welcomed among other people close to his age who are supervised by a 24 hour staff.

Two existing residents agreed to double up in a bedroom to make room for Shirey, she said, and state officials agreed to provide additional funding to Verland to enable it to expand staff and care.

"Everybody went to extraordinary lengths to make this happen because he was a consumer most definitely in need," Mitchell said.

She noted that additional nurses have to be hired at the facility because of Shirey's dependency on a ventilator.

If it's not working properly, he may stop breathing in his sleep.

A welfare department community services program for persons with physical disabilities is to cover the primary cost of his care, which is expected to be near the program's maximum of $200,000 annually, while Shirey's medical costs are covered by Medical Assistance managed-care insurance.

Shirey will be transferring from Quaker Valley to the Highlands School District this fall.

He can be a special education student with his Verland housing covered until age 21, after which welfare officials will review what housing and care assistance is appropriate for him as an adult. Shirey said he was still hoping to live in a normal home with assistance from a family at that time.