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Wednesday, February 26, 1997

Bill would toughen regulations

By JUAN B. ELIZONDO Jr. Associated Press Writer

AUSTIN (AP) - Judith White brought lawmakers close to tears as she described a recent fall from her bed in a nursing home.

Mrs. White, 57, said she screamed for help for more than an hour before someone helped her back into bed. Even then, she was left uncovered by the blanket she was trying to reach when she feel.

"We were good citizens. We went to war. We had children. We led good lives and we're being treated this way. It's not fair," Mrs. White told the House Human Services Committee.

She urged lawmakers to approve a bill to toughen state nursing home regulations. "You have to be in a nursing home to know what it's like."

Mrs. White, of Austin, was among several hundred senior citizens who packed the Capitol on Tuesday.

The bill they support, by Rep. Elliott Naishtat, D-Austin, is expected to be before the committee for about a week before a vote is taken.

"We're going to pass a law that's going to guarantee, as much as the law can guarantee, that people in these facilities receive the highest quality of care," Naishtat said.

The bill would make it more difficult for nursing homes to get state licensing.

It also would increase fines for violating state standards and increase quality of care standards. Those include requirements that nursing homes provide services that "enable the resident to attain and maintain the highest practicable level of physical, emotional and social well being."

"We want (nursing home residents) to be taken care of. We want them to have ... all the rights any other person would expect to have," said Wilhelmina Gladden, head of the AARP's Legislative Council. "We feel that money that is paid to most nursing homes is adequate to give better care than is given."

The American Association of Retired Persons brought hundreds of senior citizens to the committee hearing. Ms. Gladden said the seniors' presence was to show lawmakers they are serious about seeing changes to the state's nursing home system enacted.

A package of bills approved in 1995 relating to nursing homes has been criticized as not doing enough to protect nursing home residents.

"They are people," Ms. Gladden said.

Tom Suehs, executive director of the Texas Health Care Association, said nursing homes also think there should be changes to how they are regulated.

But he said Naishtat's bill has too many punishments and not enough room for nursing homes to work with regulators to solve problems.

Officials from the Department of Human Services and the attorney general's office said they need more authority to enforce current rules and rules need to be made stronger.

Suehs agreed some rules need to be changed. But he said there's enough authority now for the state to regulate nursing homes.

THCA represents about 80 percent of Texas nursing homes.

"It may be that they need clarification," Suehs said of some state rules. "But we also believe the system ought to be changed and not just be a punitive system." Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
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