Reid: Nursing home bill based on state law

Tuesday, Aug. 26, 1997 | 10:14 a.m.

A new Nevada law is being touted as the blueprint for proposed national legislation designed to protect nursing home residents from abuse.

If the legislation becomes law during the next congressional session, it would require the names of those convicted of abusing nursing home patients, or even accused of abusing them, to appear on a national registry.

Further, the law would require criminal background checks on all new employees.

The strict measure, say officials, would keep abusive workers from going from state to state and getting jobs in nursing homes where they continue "preying on the elderly."

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., using one of the top long-term care facilities in the valley as a backdrop, focused attention Monday on a bill he sponsored titled the "Patient Abuse Prevention Act."

Reid told an audience of specialists in long-term care, gathered at the Delmar Garden Nursing Home in Henderson, that the bill is very similar to a law written by state Assemblyman Jack Close and Assemblywoman Vivian Freeman and passed this year by the Nevada Legislature.

"It set a pattern for what should happen all over the country," Reid said. "I think it will change the country for the better -- it will create better safeguards."

He said there is no conflict between his bill and an employee's right to privacy.

Reid said abusive employees have used the privacy claim in the past to hide their bad records, but that will not happen in the future if his bill becomes law.

According to Reid, 534 cases of abuse of the elderly at long-term care facilities have been reported in Nevada since July 1996.

A 1995 national study revealed 218,000 abuse complaints.

Close said he was motivated to develop the state legislation more than seven months ago when he learned about the rape of three nursing home residents by an employee.

Reid pointed out that 43 percent of the population over 65 will enter a nursing home or some other kind of long-term care arrangement.

And, according to Reid, census figures in 1980 and 1990 revealed Nevada led the nation in the number of older residents moving into the state.

He said the migration of the elderly is providing a challenge to Nevada.

"We need to be vigilant," he said. "The increase must not affect good care."

Winthrop Cashdollar, executive director of the Nevada Health Care Association, said the extended-care facilities that belong to his association support the registry.

Key elements of the proposed Patient Abuse Prevention Act include: