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M O N D A Y ,
169th year No. 87
A P R I L
1 8 ,
2 0 0 5
PART TWO OF FIVE
Officials
brace
for base
closings
METRO EDITION
Summit
to pick
pope
begins
today
State of neglect
HOW LOUISIANA LETS NURSING HOMES
ENDANGER ITS MOST VULNERABLE CITIZENS
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Targeted facilities
to be named in May
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By Bruce Alpert
Cardinals’ conclave
opens at Vatican
Washington bureau
WASHINGTON — It’s not something state and local officials
like to talk about, not wanting to
concede the possibility that
their military facilities could be
on the 2005 list of closings.
But behind the scenes, they
are seeking assurances that if
the worst happens and one of
their bases is shuttered, the
Pentagon won’t simply sell off
the closed facilities to the highest bidder.
One month before Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is
scheduled to recommend a list of
targeted bases to the Base Closing Commission, the military is
sending conflicting signals.
Several months ago, Navy officials, appearing at a base-closing conference, told representatives of communities with military bases that the Pentagon is
looking to recoup significant
money from the facilities and
won’t be as willing as they have
in previous downsizing rounds
to turn over closed bases to local communities.
Philip Grone, deputy undersecretary of defense for installations and environment, was
more conciliatory during a
House hearing this month.
“I must stress this,” he said
in response to a question. “We
recognize the importance of engaging the local community, not
just in the closure scenario
where the issue is effective and
efficient economic redevelopment, but also where we also
leverage other federal assets —
economic development, the administration, the Department of
Labor.”
John Lynch of the Spectrum
Group, based in Washington,
D.C., which has a $350,000 contract with Louisiana to help
make the case for keeping the
state’s four military bases
open, said the “conflicting messages” concern local government officials.
The military has a good reason to keep the redevelopment
process flexible. Some bases are
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LIVING
BUY .
TP PAGES,
PHOTOS
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By Alan Cooperman
and Daniel Williams
The Washington Post
Tragedy in the
children’s ward
Jordan Bruce should have lived. But critics say a nursing home preferred
to save money than do all it could to save Jordan and nine other kids.
the crisis, Dr. Debra Berg, an epidemic inThe first child got sick May 10, 1996. vestigator with the Centers for Disease
Her two roommates quickly followed.
Control, testified in a lawsuit filed against
Within a month, two of the three girls t h e h o m e b y p a r e n t s o f t w o o f t h e
were dead and a mysterious virus was children. Basically, all the home had to do
spreading to other rooms on
was make sure workers
Story by
the children’s wing at Southwashed their hands and wore
Jeffrey Meitrodt
down Care Center in Houma.
gloves, a gown and a surgical
Staff writer
If nursing home officials
mask each time they treated
had taken the government’s
one of the children, who rePhotos by
advice, they might have been
quired constant medical atJohn McCusker
able to contain the epidemic
tention. Children who got sick
Staff photographer
before it got worse, according
should have been put in isolato the doctor assigned to handle the case tion. And no matter what, Berg testified, no
for the federal Centers for Disease Control more children should have been admitted
and Prevention. But they didn’t. And, so, into the facility until the epidemic was over.
by the end of July, 10 of the 23 disabled
But Berg told jurors that the home’s prichildren at Southdown were dead, victims mary owner, Clarence Brodhead, was
of one of the deadliest outbreaks of aden- “very resistant” to the idea of spending
ovirus in medical history.
It wouldn’t have taken much to control
See SOUTHDOWN, A-5
ABOVE, Marci
Bruce, top right,
had hoped
Southdown Care
Center could
wean her son
Jordan, center,
from his oxygen
tube. Instead, he
died there. Her
anguished husband, Chad Bruce
Sr., pictured in
this family photo
with sons, Chad
Jr., left, and
Morris, right, later
took his own life.
INSIDE
NEXT
SHIELDED
TOTAL FINE? $0
ALLIES IN BATON ROUGE
In Louisiana, nursing homes often have
more legal protections than residents.
Page A-6
Treatment is mishandled, and eventually
a bedsore takes the life of Edith Manning.
Page A-8
The nursing home industry
is one of the most powerful
forces in Baton Rouge.
ROME — Sequestered behind
Vatican City’s medieval walls,
115 Roman Catholic cardinals
from 52 countries will enter a
secret conclave today to choose
a successor to Pope John Paul
II following elaborate rules that
are both written and unwritten,
ancient and new, spiritual and
political.
The cardinals arrived by foot
and by car Sunday at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the Vatican guesthouse where they will
sleep and eat during the conclave. All were dressed in their
traditional red-trimmed black
cassocks, their waists wrapped
in scarlet sashes and their
heads bobbing beneath scarlet
skullcaps. Already forbidden to
speak to reporters, they will
take a vow of complete secrecy
when they enter the Sistine
Chapel today. There, under
Michelangelo’s depiction of a
stern Christ delivering the Last
Judgment, they will mark