AARP Volunteers Pack District Council Hearing on Nursing Home Quality

Source: AARP.org | December 10, 2003

On Nov. 3, 150 AARP volunteers packed a District Council hearing on nursing home quality. They took time out of their day to voice concern about the care received by D.C.'s approximately 3,000 nursing home residents.

Council member Sandy Allen, chair of the Human Resources Committee and a strong advocate for nursing home quality, convened the hearing at AARP's request. She opened the discussion with a bang, announcing a series of important initiatives to improve nursing home care, including: increasing minimum nurse staffing levels, ensuring a regulatory system with fines and penalties and requiring public disclosure of nursing home inspection results.

She also promised to host a Senior Summit in the spring of 2004, focusing on this and other issues concerning older D.C. residents. Council member David Catania, who joined Allen for the entire day, demonstrated his knowledge of nursing home issues and his interest in making positive change.

AARP D.C. President Romaine B. Thomas was the first to testify on behalf of AARP's 87,000 District members. She urged the Council to pass a resolution calling for a Department of Health goal to improve nursing home quality, as well as specific milestones and timelines for achieving that goal.

The significance of such a measure was underlined by two major reports released to coincide with the Council Hearing. The first — "Nursing Home Conditions in the District of Columbia: Many Nursing Homes Still Fail to Meet Federal Standards for Adequate Care" — was released by D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton on behalf of AARP D.C. It found that 20 of the District's 21 nursing homes had violated federal health standards over the previous 22 months. Nine of the homes had violations that caused actual harm to residents or placed them at risk of death or serious injury.

The Norton report was supported by the second report — "Broken Promises: An Interim Assessment of the District of Columbia's Initiatives to Improve Quality of Care in Nursing Facilities 2002-2003" — prepared by the D.C. Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program. This report contended that "…almost two years after the District Government assured its citizens that it was working to improve nursing home quality… [there is] no implementation of the [January 2002] nursing home regulations, no increased staff to properly monitor nursing homes and investigate complaints, and not one deficiency has been cited, [nor a] penalty imposed against a nursing home on the basis of the … regulations."

If you are interested in working with AARP D.C. on our nursing home quality campaign, please call Grier Mendel at (202) 434-7704 or email her at gmendel@aarp.org

Related Articles

Broken Promises: D.C. Government Fails to Implement Nursing Home Regulations

Care in Nursing Homes

Other Resources

D.C. Nursing Home Quality Report

Free AARP Guide for Getting Good Nursing Home Care in D.C.