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Pennsylvania State Senate
04/24/2024 05:28 AM
Pennsylvania State Senate
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/Legis/CSM/showMemoPublic.cfm?chamber=S&SPick=20210&cosponId=34740
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Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2021 - 2022 Regular Session

MEMORANDUM

Posted: February 18, 2021 09:58 AM
From: Senator Bob Mensch
To: All Senate members
Subject: Protecting Our Nursing Home Residents
 
In the near future, I will be introducing legislation similar to Senator Kim Ward’s Senate Bill 1189 of last session.  The bill requires certain protocols to be followed by the Secretary of Health to better ensure the safety of those living in long-term care facilities during state emergencies relating to a communicable disease.
 
We cannot forget or repeat the catastrophic decision made last March by the Department of Health which forced long-term care living facilities within Pennsylvania to readmit residents who were discharged from the hospital and still positive for the COVID-19 virus.
 
Between April 15th and April 29th, 2020, positive COVID-19 cases within long-term care living spread in Pennsylvania from 3,316 residents within 297 facilities to 7,698 residents in 461 facilities.  Yet, at the same time, 60% of regular hospital beds were sitting unused, 60% of ICU beds were available and 70% of ventilators were not in use.  Hospitals were over half empty while many of their local nursing homes were being overwhelmed by COVID-19 outbreaks last spring.
 
Instead of being kept within hospitals that had more resources and capacity to isolate stable but COVID-positive patients and better monitor them for any further complications, these sick patients were forced back into facilities where staff had little to no PPE or access to testing, no space was available to adequately quarantine them, and other residents were made needlessly and further susceptible to COVID-19. 
 
The legislation I’m reintroducing will mirror Senate Bill 1189 of last session, as passed by the Senate in September.  It requires the Secretary of Health to ensure the following individuals are not placed within a long-term care nursing facility, assisted living residence, or a personal care home without being isolated within the facility with dedicated personnel assigned to work only to the area of isolation:
  1. An individual who is less than 14 days from testing positive for a communicable disease that is the subject of an emergency declaration by the Governor; or,
  2. An individual who is less than 14 days from being asymptomatic of a communicable disease that is the subject of an emergency declaration by the Governor. 
The bill will also require the Secretary to adequately equip nursing facilities, assisted living residences, and personal care homes so they can follow and implement all recommendations and guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for the prevention and control of a communicable disease. 
 
Previous co-sponsors of Senate Bill 1189 were Senators K. Ward, Vogel, Tomlinson, Bartolotta, Martin, Yaw, Pittman, Hutchinson, Baker, Stefano and Scavello.