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NURSING HOME REFORM NEWSLETTER

http://www.KyNursingHomeReform.org

March 23, 2005


THE PARTY’S OVER….

…. Well you wouldn’t exactly call the 2005 Kentucky General Assembly a party, but it is over. And sadly we report that the two bills we sponsored did not make it through this political maze. Amazingly, House Bill 270, the legislation that would have put harsh penalties on anyone tipping off a nursing home that it was going to be inspected by the state, did not pass. The Cabinet for Health and Family Services approved the bill, in fact they helped rewrite it for this session, and the nursing home industry lobby did not object to it. Still it failed to get a hearing in the Senate judiciary committee because the chairman, Sen. Robert Stivers, said his committee’s agenda was too full. He indicated a review of it in the interim committee process, which is hopeful. We think that what really stopped this good piece of legislation was political infighting between the leadership of the Senate and the sponsor of it in the House, Rep. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington. We are betting that the Senate’s iron fist, Sen. David Williams, R-Burkesville, took time off from watching UK basketball to put the kabosh on the bill. But as they say in Frankfort, "Oh well, that’s politics." (By the way, did you see Sen. Williams on television at one of the UK NCAA games? He was sitting near basketball coach Tubby Smith’s wife. Pretty good seats for the Senate president! He’s a big UK fan; and I remember when he sat with all the other legislators.)

THE STAFFING BILL

That one – House Bill 208 – never made it out of the Health and Welfare committee in the House. Amazingly, a good friend of nursing home reform, Rep. Tom Burch, D-Louisville, killed it when he announced that he had learned that the bill would cost the state more than $20 million. No one knew where Rep. Burch came up with that figure, but now he says it is even more. We will try to find out in the interim and get our friend, Rep. Burch, back on our side. A staffing bill introduced in the Virginia legislature recently was scuttled when a high price tag was put on it. When the same thing happened to the legislation here, Kentucky legislators forgot that they passed an increase in the provider tax in the 2004 session that brings in to them about $55 million more a year from state Medicaid reimbursement. Surely there would be enough in that windfall for nursing homes to meet minimum staffing standards. For example, the House Bill 208 set a minimum standard of one certified nursing assistant to every eight residents on the day shift. That is a minimum and reasonable number. Nursing homes that are not meeting that minimum standard would be a sorry place to live. Sadly, there are some. So, there are many others besides Rep. Burch who must be educated on the need for quality staffing standards legislation. We must find a way of insuring that residents of nursing homes have enough staff on duty at all times to take care of them. Many people do not know that.

YOU CAN HELP.

Legislators will have trouble getting behind staffing legislation if we do not tell them about staffing problems in nursing homes. We need to educate people about the staff shortages in nursing homes and the problems it causes. Most legislators and others who object to staffing standards are those who have never spent much time looking in on a relative or friend on a regular basis. This is a true case of the old saying: "Familiarity breeds contempt." Give me someone who is in a nursing home on a regular basis and I will show you someone who knows how the shortage of front-line caregivers in nursing homes is causing all kinds of problems – dehydration, falls and bruises, malnutrition, and the painful bedsores. YOU CAN HELP educate legislators and the public by sending me examples from your own experience where lack of enough staff has caused your loved one a problem. Make it brief and do it now, and I will publish them in this newsletter and on the Kentuckians For Nursing Home Reform web site, http://www.KyNursingHomeReform.org. Many legislators have never even been in their local nursing home, so how can we expect them to realize the problem? Do your part. Tell them your story. Let me hear from you soon.

SOME GOOD NEWS….

There was some good news on the nursing home front in the 2005 legislature. A bill on elder abuse passed after much hard work by Rep. Jimmie Lee, D-Elizabethtown, and the AARP. There were many others who pushed the bill along going way back to the previous administration and to nursing home ombudsmen like Kathy Gannoe of Lexington who pushed hard for this measure. It took three years to get it passed, and it is much watered down, but it is a good start in protecting elderly people whether they are in nursing homes or not. The bill gives state authorities the chance to look at elder abuse in the same serious way they have child abuse and sexual abuse. I have always considered the neglect of nursing home residents as abuse. It occurs in facilities that are understaffed. I wonder when some legal beagle will take this new law and charge a nursing home for elder abuse because they are neglecting their patients. Just wondering.

SOME BAD NEWS….

Serious cuts in Medicaid may be coming soon. President Bush’s budget proposes to cut $45 billion out of Medicaid. That would gut it. Strong lobbying by consumer organizations like our National Citizens Coalition for Nursing Home Reform got a vote by a razor-thin margin in the Senate to hold off on the Medicaid cuts. But the Bush administration is going to keep pushing. Kentucky’s two U.S. Senators voted with the administration recently to keep the big Medicaid cuts in the budget. We predict there will be a compromise before it is over but the outcome could still hurt people on Medicaid in Kentucky nursing homes. Nothing short of taking the proposed Medicaid cuts out of the Bush budget will work. Remember when the Patton administration started kicking old people out of nursing homes? If the Bush budget remains intact with heavy Medicaid cuts, you could see this happening again in Kentucky or worse. We will keep you posted when the next crucial vote comes up through our "Legislative Alert." This is a serious situation and deserves close watching.

HAIL MARY.

Better, "Hail Sister Mary Christina." She is the administrator of the Taylor Manor Nursing Home in Versailles run by the Sisters of St. Joseph the Worker. The sisters there rattled so many beads that they got the provider tax lowered on small nursing homes with no Medicaid patients from 6 percent to 1 percent. Sister M. Christina led the protest to state officials and legislators who reacted by passing a bill lowering the tax on them. Also credit Shelley Laneve, the director of nursing at Shemwell Nursing Home in Providence, with getting the bill through. She is the director of nursing at Shemwell, and she is one tough (but young) bird. One legislator said that Shelley should be in the legislature herself. We should be so lucky…… The Altenheim in Louisville also was active in getting the bill passed. They are a small one, too, with just 63 beds.

FEEDBACK.

"The nursing personnel hired to ‘take care of’ all of the residents and patients at a nursing facility or hospital are often underpaid and under-staffed." -- Feedback from a certified nursing assistant. Read her entire commentary in "Feedback" at http://www.KyNursingHomeReform.org

THANK YOU.

There are many people to thank for the progress we are making with nursing home reform. While our two bills did not pass, we are making the plight of nursing home residents better known to lawmakers and the public. Special thanks must go to Rep. Stein who hangs in there with us and introduced the two bills in the House….. Thanks to our friend, Saundra Lykins, who ran our "Legislative Hotline" and implored many of you to call legislators….. Thanks to Janet Powell who designed and manages our web site, http://www.KyNursingHomeReform.org, and to Kathy Gannoe who runs the Nursing Home Ombudsman Agency of the Bluegrass and all of that agency’s board members for their support and counsel, and on and on. If I go further I will begin to leave important people out. But thanks mainly to all of YOU who support this effort, who pat me on the back and say, "Keep it up." We will prevail, but there is much more to do. So stay with me. The next action will be to officially organize our new organization, Kentuckians For Nursing Home Reform, and we will need all of you for that, too.

THAT’S IT, AND THANKS FOR READING….

Bernie Vonderheide

Kentuckians For Nursing Home Reform

e-mail: KyNursingHomeReform@yahoo.com

web site: http://www.KyNursingHomeReform.org

P.S.

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