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| Rep. Helena Moreno (left) & Lucie Titus (right) |
Titus' mother, Ann Graff, who had Alzheimer's disease, couldn't explain how it happened. Neither could anyone who worked at the nursing home. And the unanswered questions left doctors guessing for several weeks about the best way to treat Graff's serious pain, Titus said.
Concerned for her mother's well-being, Titus tried to install a small video camera in the room, so she could keep a watch on her mother to ensure her well-being. But administrators from the nursing home banned the camera.
State Rep. Helena Moreno, D-New Orleans, said Wednesday she wants to ensure nursing homes are required to allow residents and their families to place surveillance cameras in their rooms if they choose.
"What's wrong with having an extra set of eyes to check on our loved ones?" Moreno said. "This is our mothers and fathers, and one day this will likely be us. I would want a camera to make sure I'm OK."
The bill advanced out of the House Health and Welfare Committee, 9-1, and heads to the full House, over the objections of the nursing home industry leaders, who raised concerns about privacy and internet hackers who could try to access webcams.
"I strongly contend that if there was video I would have been able to get my mother treatment immediately, instead of guessing for three weeks and watching her suffer in pain," Titus said in her testimony to the committee.
Titus sued in federal court on behalf of her mother for the right to have a camera. But Graff passed away recently, which effectively ended the lawsuit.
Dozens of nursing home owners submitted red cards to the legislative committee, a signal of opposition. But keeping his comments brief, Mark Berger, Louisiana Nursing Home Association executive director, only asked that Moreno be amenable to working together to improve security provisions tied to the bill.
Moreno pointed out that while her bill had a long list of opponents, every single one was the owner of a nursing home.
"Who are we trying to protect here in the state of Louisiana?" she asked. "None of the opposition here was a resident or a family member of a resident."
Moreno noted that to address privacy and liability issues, her bill requires that the nursing home resident who has a camera in their room to sign a waiver. If the patient shares a room, then the roommate would also have to sign a waiver for the camera to be allowed.
The camera would also have to be set up and purchased by the resident's family or guardian.
She said the bill also protected the nursing homes.
"If it was truly an accident, then you can see there is no wrongdoing," she said.
Moreno is set to leave the Legislature before the session ends because she will be sworn into her new office in the New Orleans City Council. She amended the bill to name Rep. Kirk Talbot, R-River Ridge, as the main sponsor, in her absence.
Two other nursing home bills scheduled for Wednesday were deferred, and are not expected to come back up this session.
Rep. Tony Bacala, R-Prairieville, deferred a bill that was expected to create more access to nursing home alternatives in the form of home-health programs. He said he decided to abandon his bill after watching a Senate committee reject the same thing earlier this week.
"I'm deferring this bill because it's dead," he said. "I hate to say it but it's dead."
But Bacala urged his colleagues to address the issue of improving home and community based care in the future.
"I hope the conversation continues and we do not turn a blind eye," Bacala said. "We have to do better."
Another bill to change the rate formula that determines the way nursing homes are reimbursed by the state was also deferred.
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Despite nursing home owners' opposition, House panel passes bill that would allow cameras in rooms
Despite nursing home opposition? Wow this is incredible!
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