Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Patient Safety and Abuse Prevention Act

Congressman Joe Sestak announced the introduction of H.R. 2223, the Patient Safety and Abuse Prevention Act, which will prevent those with criminal histories from working within long-term care settings by creating a comprehensive nationwide system of background checks.

The legislation would expand a highly successful three-year pilot program, which prevented more than 7,000 applicants with a history of substantiated abuse or a violent criminal record from working with and preying upon our elders and individuals with disabilities in long-term care settings.

The bill is co-sponsored by Congress Members Vernon Ehlers, Carolyn Kilpatrick, Joe Courtney, Ellen Tauscher, and Fred Upton, and is a companion to the Senate bill S. 631, introduced by Senators Herb Kohland Susan Collins.

Full Article and Source:
Congressman Sestak Introduces Critically Needed Patient Safety Legislation

6 comments:

  1. This is good -- it should help.

    Predators should be taken out of a place of convenince. Everything should be done to keep them away from the vulnerable.

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  2. This is a real problem. However, it is not just employees you have to worry about in long term care. The residents are elderly and some come with mental and criminal histories. They have to go somewhere when they age.

    They may be in the bed or room next to your loved one.

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  3. You are so right, Anonymous 2.

    When perverts get old, they go to nursing homes. So do murders.

    And the nursing homes don't tell you that your loved one's room mate or the person across the hall has a record a mile long.

    But, cleaning up the staff is a good start.

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  4. I applaud any effort that gets the ball rolling in the right direction.

    We have to clean up nursing homes instead of just talking about i.

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  5. It's always about money, isn't it? They would do anything to get to it, pushing family away and terrorizing vulnerable people.

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