EDITORIAL: Dropped nursing home reporting requirement is a lost opportunity

Apr. 27—The nursing home industry is accustomed to having its way in Baton Rouge, as this paper has documented many times.

Today's example focuses on House Bill 933, a John Bel Edwards administration measure sponsored by state Rep. Joe Stagni, R-Kenner.

The bill came in response to jaw-dropping neglect by businessman Bob Dean, who moved 843 residents from his archipelago of seven nursing homes into an un-air-conditioned Tangipahoa Parish warehouse during Hurricane Ida. The state Health Department wound up rescuing the elderly and medically vulnerable people from the rural site, where many were lying in their own feces and urine. Fifteen of them died, and at least five of the deaths were blamed on the evacuation.

The fiasco was just another reminder of the misguided way Louisiana treats the elderly and infirm, with rules that push them into nursing homes when many would prefer to receive care outside an institutional setting. Most states are moving toward greater reliance on home health care, but Louisiana is heading in the opposite direction.

Nursing homes already have to provide hurricane emergency plans to the state, but HB 933, as originally proposed, added a requirement that they submit "after-event" reports detailing how their plans worked during the crisis.

Caring for vulnerable people while staring down the wrath of nature is important work, and many nursing homes and their employees perform admirably, which the reports would demonstrate. They'd also help the state and the industry plan better, and provide useful information to family members seeking a home for a relative.

But the initial bill exempted the reports from the state public records law, so they would remain secret forever. Critics, including the Louisiana Press Association, cried foul.

The simple solution would have been to make the reports public, with provisions to protect confidential information like names and conditions of patients.

Instead, the Edwards administration elected to drop the requirement altogether, according to reporting by Julie O'Donoghue, of the Louisiana Illuminator. What's left of HB 933 clarifies how the state handles the emergency plans submitted in advance by nursing homes.

What a lost opportunity. The after-event reports might have helped save lives in the next hurricane season, which is only a month away.

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