Human Rights Violation?

I have a friend who has severe cerebral palsy. He is confined to a motorized wheel chair and his spine is severely tipped to the right side.

When he was a child he did not receive any therapy to straighten his spine. Instead, in his teen years he had a rod surgically placed in his spine. Needless to say, the rod broke in a few years and has not been replaced. He is now in his thirties.

Why is this a question of human rights? He has no memory of his birth family and has been in state care his whole life, even now. Would he have received better care is he had not been poor? Where was his advocate? Who was looking out for his rights? And, he lives in a state with a history of much better care for the disabled than say, California.

He presently refuses to have the rod replaced or go to therapy because it is too painful. His carers are constantly telling him to sit up straight. If I were him, I would slouch too.