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Until a few years ago there was a Medical Industry company in Jonesboro. It was called Ascent Children's Health Services and operated facilities in several cities in the area. They had a fancy office over off Stadium Boulevard now known as Red Wolf Boulevard and I occasionally wondered idly what sort of health services they were. According to their website they provided mental health for children with disabilities or behavioral problems. According to the website ACHS had been in business for 25 years. It shut down rather abruptly around 2018 after a major scandal. I'm guessing that causing child to die a horrible death under inexcusable circumstances would be a major scandal. It seems that a lot of their business was providing day care for children with problems and they had vans that went around like school buses and collected the children to the day care centers. ACHS had a facility at West Memphis and one day the people there sent the vans around and collected the kids and brought them to the day care center. And unloaded most of them. One of the kids, a five-year-old boy, was left in the van. Strapped into the seat he couldn't escape. Not that he didn't try but in vain. It was a hot day and eight hours later he was found dead. Anyone want to think about what that's like? I've been through some rough experiences and thought I might not survive but I don't even want to think about that one. It wasn't the first time they had lost track of some of their young charges but this one couldn't be covered up. Four employees were soon arrested and charged with manslaughter. Seems appropriate but.... I don't know if there's always a 'but' but in this case there's a big one pardon my Greek. You see, the CEO of ACHS was an Arkansas state legislator - a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives. In that capacity he aggressively advocated for less regulation of the child care industry in Arkansas. What he wanted was to be able to hire even cheaper help than what he already had and you see what happened with that. The low-wage (but still more expensive than the CEO wanted to pay for) employees were prosecuted but had the most culpable - the CEO and COO of the operation - been prosecuted the CEO probably would not have gone on to be promoted to the state senate. And the COO wouldn't have been free to run the hellhole where I almost perished several years later. |