The U.S. Justice Department last week brought a hammer of words down on South Dakota’s health care system, accusing the state of shepherding disabled and mentally ill people into nursing homes — whether they belonged there or not.

[Read the findings letter here].

It’s the latest in a trend: the Obama administration has opened more than 50 similar investigations across the 50 states, investigating possible abuses to the civil rights of disabled and mentally ill people in long-term care settings.

Many people with disabilities in South Dakota are steered towards nursing homes rather than in-home care, even where the latter would be more appropriate, according to the Justice Department.

The New York Times discusses the matter further:

In a scathing rebuke of the state’s health care system, the Justice Department said on Monday that thousands of patients were being held unnecessarily in sterile, highly restrictive group homes. That is discrimination, it said, making South Dakota the latest target of a federal effort to protect the civil rights of people with disabilities and mental illnesses, outlined in a Supreme Court decision 17 years ago.

The Obama administration has opened more than 50 such investigations and reached settlements with eight states. One investigation, into Florida’s treatment of children with disabilities, ended in a lawsuit over policies that placed those children in nursing homes. With its report Monday, the Justice Department signaled that it might also sue South Dakota.

[…]

There are more than 1.7 million nursing beds in the United States, and many Americans require round-the-clock care and the protection of a nursing home. But for untold numbers of others — with mental illnesses, developmental disabilities or chronic diseases — the confines of a nursing home can be unnecessarily isolating. Yet when patients seek help paying for long-term care, states often steer them toward nursing homes, even though it may not be needed.

[…]

With help, the Justice Department said, such people could live at home, hold jobs and lead productive lives. Instead, they are confined and segregated from society. Many cannot leave the grounds of their institutions without supervision or perform tasks such as shopping for groceries or cooking meals. One resident told investigators that when friends visited to take him for a car ride, “they have to sign me out, like a kid.”

South Dakota’s governor, Dennis Daugaard says that his state is making progress, but facing challenges due to the state’s sparse population.