Officials are investigating the death of a 10-year-old child at a group home for disabled foster children, said Maryland's health secretary.
The child died last week. Dr. Joshua Sharfstein said Friday an autopsy is planned to determine what happened. He also said the health department and the Maryland department of Human Services will conduct separate investigations.
The child had been under the care of an Anne Arundel County group home run by LifeLine Inc. that was slated for closure by state regulators.
The Baltimore Sun reports that Connie West supervised the deceased boy's education plans and said the child had breathed through a tracheostomy tube connected to a ventilator.
The Sun reports:
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[He]... was under a "do not resuscitate" order authorized by social services officials, said West, who was appointed by Anne Arundel County's school system to work with the boy.
"He probably would have passed," West said. "That doesn't mean he would have passed this soon."
Health officials had been monitoring the children in the group home weekly since determining in the spring that LifeLine didn't have "sufficient staff to address the 'health and safety needs of each child,' according to an inspection report dated June 20, the Sun reported.
Sharfstein said that the Laurel facility had been inspected regularly, but that recent inspections began to show more significant problems with provider care. The facility had indicated it would give up its license in September, and the remaining children were relocated over last weekend.
"In 2014, they began to have more significant violations, and those included problems with the care that they were providing and that led us to number one: intensify our oversight, number two, start a process of closing them and transitioning the youth,'' Sharfstein said.
LifeLine did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
In May, a complaint was filed due to allegations of neglect at the facility because of a youth's bed sore. In June, the state noted inadequate staffing at the facility.
A survey by the state in February found that four of eight employees did not have documents to support the successful completion of training for the special needs of the children at the facility.
