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6/17/2021
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House OKs bill to give family caregivers access to nursing home residents during emergencies
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 STATE HOUSE — The House today passed legislation sponsored by Rep. June S. Speakman to allow nursing home residents to be visited by a designated family member or caregiver during a state of emergency.
The bill (2021-H 5543aa) would require the Department of Health to create rules and regulations providing for the designation of essential caregivers to provide in-person physical or emotional support to a resident of a nursing home or long-term care facility during the period of 15 days after the declaration of disaster emergency and until 60 days after the termination of the declaration.
“The emotional and mental health of patients has to be considered in an emergency like the pandemic we have been experiencing for the last 15 months. Keeping residents physically safe is important, but isolating them completely from their families for months on end created a second epidemic of loneliness and disconnection. Those who died during that time left this world heartbreakingly alone, a situation that will haunt many families forever,” said Representative Speakman (D-Dist. 68, Warren, Bristol). “We must never let this tragedy repeat itself. If this situation arises in the future, we need a plan that safely allows nursing home residents access to someone close to them so they have some connection to a loved one during a stressful and frightening time.”
Under the legislation, an essential caregiver would be an individual — whether a family member or friend of a resident of a nursing home or long-term care facility — who is designated to provide physical or emotional support to the resident during a declaration of disaster emergency.
The bill would require the Department of Health to develop rules and regulations on designating an essential caregiver and the criteria to qualify. Those rules would include health and safety regulations as well as requirements allowing an essential caregiver to have regular and sustained in-person visitation and physical access to a resident of the nursing home or long-term care facility.
The bill now goes to the Senate, which on June 1 passed companion legislation (2021- S 0006A) sponsored by introduced by Sen. Frank S. Lombardi (D-Dist. 26, Cranston).
For more information, contact:
Meredyth R. Whitty, Publicist
State House Room 20
Providence, RI 02903
(401) 222-1923
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