Guest column: Quality of nursing home care needs to be stronger
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Thanks to COVID-19, this session of the Florida Legislature looks and sounds different. With social distancing, online testimony, and streaming committee meetings, the Florida Capitol seems quiet, compared to past sessions. And, as is true in so many horror movies, the quiet is foreboding. Just as nursing home residents were victimized by the invisible coronavirus during the lockdown of the last year, so they are being victimized by the heavy-hitting industry lobbyists for nursing homes and healthcare executives in the locked down Capitol.
Not only have lawmakers fast-tracked bills that give nursing homes immunity from COVID-19-related lawsuits (SB 72), now they’re fast-tracking cuts to the quality of care in Florida nursing homes. Letting these facilities off the hook by making it nearly impossible for residents and families to seek resolution through the court system is shameful. Piling on proposals that cut the quality of care for nursing home residents is unthinkable – proof that the industry’s self-serving, aggressive push for less accountability and more profit is being fulfilled at the expense of resident safety.