Families, AARP say essential caregiver law is not strong enough - The Boston Globe
PROVIDENCE — They spent more than a year fighting to visit and care for their loved ones in nursing homes during the pandemic.
Their testimony about the isolation and despair of nursing home residents led the General Assembly to unanimously pass a bill this year giving those residents the right to have a designated friend or family member as an essential caregiver who can be with them during declared states of emergency.
However, some of those families and the AARP told Health officials Wednesday morning that its proposed rules for the new essential caregiver law would actually weaken the law.
“We really fought hard to get back in there. We shouldn’t have had to fight so hard. I can tell horror stories about trying,” said advocate Charlie Galligan of Bristol, whose elderly parents are both in a nursing home. “We just don’t want our moms and dads to die alone.”
The meeting was intended as a community review of the rules and regulations regarding COVID-19 procedures, essential caregivers, and minimum staffing requirements. A formal public hearing will be scheduled later.
Galligan, who is now part of a national essential caregiver movement, pointed out that the proposed rules would allow nursing homes to suspend visits based on shortages of personal protective equipment, or at certain levels of COVID transmission, or “any other mitigating factor.”
“That could be anything. That totally guts the bill,” Galligan testified. “We put a lot of work into this bill. If you enact these rules it would render this useless.”
The lockdowns at nursing homes and assisted living facilities at the start of the pandemic were a reaction to the wave of outbreaks that infected and killed residents and staff. Staffing shortages, a perennial issue at nursing homes, remain a problem.
Matthew Netto, the associate state director of outreach at AARP-Rhode Island, also said that the proposed rules would end up locking out loved ones, even if the communicable diseases are under control. “The way it looks is if the facility deems it doesn’t have enough masks or gloves, or there are any mitigating circumstances, it can cancel” visits,” Netto said. That gives facilities a lot of leeway to stop visitation in general.”
Only 12 states, including Rhode Island, have an essential caregiver law, which allows nursing home residents to designate a loved one as an essential caregiver who can visit them even during an emergency. These aren’t casual visits — for frail residents, especially those with dementia, the caregiver is often spending several hours a day with them, feeding them, bathing them, and offering emotional support. One woman testified about her mother’s decline after months of not being visited. Her mother had lost 30 pounds, because the staff didn’t realize she couldn’t feed herself, and her mental state had diminished, the woman testified.
State Representative Patricia Morgan, a Republican representing West Warwick, Coventry, and Warwick, spoke of her personal understanding of the law. When the pandemic began, Morgan said, she cared for her mother, who is deaf and has moderate dementia, rather than move her into a nursing home where she would be alone and unable to communicate with the staff.
“They can’t advocate for themselves. They need someone who is healthy and capable at their side,” Morgan said. “That was intention of General Assembly.”
If the nursing homes are worried about liability from caregivers, then the state should protect the homes, she said.
“They do a tremendous job. They do take care of our elderly… but my mother needs me by her side and has needed me for the past two years,” Morgan said. “Without me, she would be dead, and that’s why we passed the essential caregiver bill. Any attempts to dilute it are wrong and not the intention of the general assembly.”
source: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/11/03/metro/families-aarp-say-essential-caregiver-law-is-not-strong-enough/
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