Editorial: Open mortality reports

If someone dies while in a New Mexico Developmental Disabilities Waiver program, a special mortality board will investigate. But its report will remain secret, even from the person’s next of kin or legal representative.

That should be remedied.

Lori DeAnda, an activist for disabled people and the mother of a son who died in a supported living home under contract with the state Department of Health, helped write legislation to grant family members access to the report. She elicited the support of freshman Rep. Elizabeth Thomson, D-Albuquerque, who introduced House Bill 557. It would allow family members, or “representatives of the estate of a deceased person,” to obtain the documents associated with a state mortality review board investigation. The reviews are aimed at identifying whether something went wrong and what can be done to prevent similar deaths.

Certainly this information should be helpful to the Department of Health in developing best practices in delivering services to the developmentally disabled community. But family members deserve to know the circumstances of their loved one’s life and death.

The bill is a good step at bringing some transparency to one now-closed expenditure of taxpayers’ money — and giving families closure.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.