<<back to news

Saturday, May 03, 2003
Torrance woman fights for rehab center

LAWSUIT: Susan Rodde, herself disabled, cites rejections from health care providers as the reason Rancho Los Amigos must stay open.

By David Zahniser

COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Susan Rodde is used to hearing doctors tell her no.

The Torrance resident has had medical specialists, hospital workers, even her dentist tell her that her medical status made her too complicated or too expensive for them to treat.

Each time she sought care close to home, Rodde – a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy – was sent back to Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, the nationally renowned county hospital in Downey that treats the severely disabled.

So when the county Board of Supervisors voted to close Rancho, Rodde immediately offered to be a plaintiff in the legal battle to save the hospital.

"I hope that from this lawsuit, that people get a broader perspective about what a rehab hospital can be for (the disabled)," she said this week. "We have rights, and we should have opportunities and choices."

County officials still hope to close Rancho by June 30, a move that would save roughly $56 million next year. But Rodde, 49, has already achieved a small legal victory – a judge’s order temporarily halting the county’s procedure for closing Rancho. It is the latest in a series of accomplishments for Rodde, an established disabled rights activist.

Living on her own with two pets, Rodde serves on the board of Protection and Advocacy Inc., one of the three nonprofit groups handling the Rancho lawsuit.

Rodde has her own Web site, www.susiecphome.com, which provides information on cerebral palsy, and sells an educational video on disabled children.

Now, as the lead plaintiff in federal court, Rodde contends that Rancho cannot close until the county guarantees comparable care elsewhere for disabled Medi-Cal recipients.

Rodde still uses many of the clinics provided by Rancho – orthopedics, gynecology, arthritis and dental care. And with her track record of being denied care elsewhere, Rodde was a strong candidate to become lead plaintiff in the high-stakes case, said attorney Melinda Bird.

"She is someone who had tried very hard not to go to Rancho," Bird said. "She tried to find other sources of care outside Rancho and was not successful."

Rodde’s medical condition is daunting. She was born prematurely by five months, weighing just 1 pound and 12 ounces. She has had cerebral palsy since birth and developed scoliosis by the time she was 10, a condition that initially threatened to leave her bedridden.

Confounded by her complex condition and her allergy to most antibiotics, doctors referred her to Rancho, the facility where she would ultimately have 70 surgeries.

The experience left a mark on her childhood. At 10, Rancho staff taught her how to make her way from a bed to a wheelchair on her own. At 12, Rodde underwent eight surgeries to fuse her spine, a procedure that enabled her to sit upright as an adult.

Rodde stayed in the hospital for more than three years, with Rancho employees helping her celebrate major holidays and cope with the awkwardness of adolescence.

"The nurses became very much like my family, my second family," she said.

Although she was ultimately forced to abandon her efforts to walk, Rodde mastered the ability to write with her right hand and maneuver an electric wheelchair. She takes on work as an occasional consultant on disability issues, giving eight-hour sensitivity-training seminars to a company that provides transportation to the disabled.

These days, Rodde relies on daily visits from an in-home health aide and as the years pass, she finds more and more health-care providers reluctant to treat her.

During visits to the emergency room, Torrance Memorial Medical Center repeatedly referred her back to Rancho, according to a sworn statement. A urologist complained that Medi-Cal’s low reimbursement rate made a needed procedure not worth his time.

Smile Care Dental in Torrance dropped her in 2001 after four years, citing her multiple disabilities and a fear that she could experience extensive bleeding, according to court documents.

Rodde engaged in a new round of calls once she heard that Rancho was slated for closure – calls that are now part of the court file. Hospitals turned her down or provided nine-month waiting lists, or only limited services, she said.

And she testified downtown, asking the five county supervisors what they would do if their own children went to Rancho.

These days Rodde keeps an eye out for another plaintiff in the Rancho lawsuit – Antonio Gaxiola, an 8-year-old boy from Wilmington who relies on an electric wheelchair and a respirator. Keeping Rancho open will provide him the services he needs to have a fulfilling life, she argued.

"He reminds me of myself when I was about his age," she said.

Rodde maintains her ties to the physicians who first treated her. Dr. Donna Barras, a pediatric rehabilitation physician who treated Rodde in the mid-1960s, still remembers Rodde’s willingness to speak up for herself as a young teen.

Forty-one years after she first arrived at Rancho, Rodde is now a model for other young rehabilitation patients, Barras said.

"What you can learn from a person like Susie, you can pass on to other families and give them hope," she said.