Saud Anwar

Sen. Anwar Votes To Pass Legislation Bolstering Many of the Services Provided by Nursing Homes and Supporting Long-Term Care Workers

HARTFORD, CT – Today, State Senator Saud Anwar (D-South Windsor) voted to pass a bill to address personal protective equipment stockpiles and staffing hours at nursing homes, while also addressing many concerns created or exacerbated due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Senate Bill 1030 “An Act Concerning Long Term Care Facilities,” passed by a 35-0 tally. The bill heads to the state House of Representatives for further debate and action.

“The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare many issues in our society, but the devastating impacts it has had on nursing homes and care homes are especially tragic,” said Sen. Anwar. “We must protect our vulnerable populations from the unfortunate, significant losses of life experienced during the last 15 months. This bill takes significant actions to protect the residents of nursing homes and memory care units, putting steps in place that can and will save lives and protect individuals’ health in the event of another pandemic. In my recent interactions with community members, they’ve told me more needs to be done for assisted living and memory care units, and I look forward to addressing their concerns going forward.”

SB 1030 makes various unrelated changes concerning long-term care (LTC) facilities such as nursing homes and dementia special care units, and the delivery of long-term care services. The bill requires the following:

• Nursing homes and dementia special care units to employ a full-time infection and prevention control specialist.
• Each LTC facility’s administrative head must provide their emergency operations plan to the municipality.
• Nursing homes must maintain a two-month supply of personal protective equipment.
• The administrative head of each LTC facility to ensure that there is at least one staff member during each shift who is licensed or certified to start an intravenous line.
• Requires nursing home infection prevention and control committee to meet at least monthly and, during an infectious disease outbreak, daily.
• Nursing homes required to test staff and residents for an infectious disease during an outbreak,
• Requires the state’s Public Health Preparedness Advisory Committee, by October 1, 2021, to amend the plan for emergency responses to public health emergencies to include a plan for emergency responses related to nursing homes.
• Requires DPH to establish minimum staffing level requirements for nursing homes of at least three hours of direct care per resident per day.

This legislation previously passed the Public Health Committee by a 32-1 tally on March 29 and, during the public hearing portion of legislative session, received praise from Audrey Thompson, a CNA from Villa of Stamford, a nursing home.

“Staffing needs to be consistent on a daily basis to ensure residents are receiving the proper care they should be receiving, and it shouldn’t consist of the bare minimum. Our residents deserve more,” said Thompson. “That’s why I urge you to pass Senate Bill 1030 because it gets back to basics with proper staffing levels.”

“Passing this bill would be a start to treating workers how they should be treated,” said Imogene McClymont, a CNA at Touchpoints at Farmington. “We need better staffing so that the residents would have more interaction with us and so they can receive better care.”

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic nursing homes were hit hard and stretched beyond their limits in several areas as they continued to provide care to their residents.

“Healthcare workers have become Social Workers, Mental Health workers and Hospice care to the ones dying without family because we don’t want them to die alone,” said Patricia Hansen, an LPN at Orange Healthcare. “Not to mention more so with the COVID. We have joined hands and circled the dying with prayers as their Last Rites. Yes, unless you work it firsthand you will never know what it is like.”