Senate bill would mandate safety protocols for Pennsylvania nursing homes

Long-term care facilities that have become the epicenter of Pennsylvania’s covid-19 fatalities would be subject to new safety protocols during emergency disaster declarations under a measure state Sen. Kim Ward is promoting.

Pennsylvania has recorded 3,106 deaths from covid-19, with about two thirds of those coming from 495 nursing homes scattered across the state.

Ward, a Hempfield Republican, said she is gathering co-sponsors for a bill that would require such facilities to follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during emergency disaster declarations. It also would bar facilities from admitting people with any confirmed communicable disease that triggered the disaster declaration.

Ward cited a March 18 order from the Pennsylvania Department of Health requiring nursing homes to admit patients with covid-19.

“And this was at a time when our hospitals had beds available and better safety protocols in place to limit the spread of the disease. Protecting our most vulnerable citizens should be a priority,” she said.

Adams Marles, CEO of LeadingAge PA, an organization that represents nonprofit nursing homes across the state, said long term care facilities have been challenged by the shortage of personal protective equipment and testing. He said the order requiring nursing homes to accept covid-19 patients came early in the pandemic.

“While some nursing facilities did, and in some cases continue to, receive pressure from hospitals to accept patients, to the best of our knowledge (the state) has not mandated that nursing facilities accept a covid-positive patient unless the facility had a covid unit, sufficient staff and appropriate PPE,” Marles said.

Zach Shamberg, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Health Care Association, another organization that represents long term care facilities, said the shortage of such equipment, coupled with a lack of access to priority testing “has created an environment in which asymptomatic staff and ancillary providers can transmit the virus to other staff and residents, by no fault of their own.”

Wolf said Wednesday that the state is now making it a priority to get such equipment to nursing homes.

State Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine added that while nursing homes have been the epicenter of fatal cases, “the majority of cases in most counties are not in nursing homes, they are in the community.”

The most recent reports showed that 9,625 nursing homes residents and 1,284 home employees have tested positive for covid-19 out of a total of 51,845 confirmed cases statewide.