Kansas City Attorneys - Beckett and Hensley

State must pursue filthy nursing homes

Across Missouri, too many vulnerable nursing home residents are lying in filth and getting painful bed sores, yet no one does anything about it.

The reason? Missouri lawmakers refuse to pass tough laws that force negligent nursing homes to be safe places for elders to live out their last days. Lawmakers listen to the nursing home lobbyists and ignore the suffering.

Gov. Bob Holden and Lt. Gov. Joe Maxwell say enough is enough. They recognize Missouri law is pitifully weak. And they want lawmakers this session to do something about it.

Compassionate legislators should make sure it happens. It is long past time to heal the elders' bed sores and clean out the dirt from some of these places - or shut them down.

Even when a home is cited for health violations, Missouri's lax law allows plenty of wiggle room to get out of paying a fine. Without tough penalties, there is no way to make the bad homes improve.

Missourians should be horrified that their aged relatives aren't better protected. The state's two top leaders are proposing several obvious solutions:

Make it a crime for a nursing home to hire anyone who has abused or neglected an elder person.
Increase penalties dramatically and require that fines be paid. Currently, care facilities can avoid paying a fine if the problems cited by inspectors are fixed before the next inspection.
Make penalties stick even if the nursing home is sold to another owner - or to the same owners who have switched to a different corporate name.
Require the executive officers of a nursing home to certify the quality of care they provide. The change would make it easier to pursue violators in court.
Prohibit nursing home owners cited for problems in other states from operating in Missouri. Right now, the state has no power to keep the bad ones out.
Make it easier to revoke a license.
Increase routine inspections of homes with problems. Make it more difficult for homes to find out when inspectors are coming.

The governor said he would make some of these changes administratively, but for others, he will need lawmakers' approval.

Lawmakers cannot let the nursing home industry continue to run roughshod over them. Missouri's elderly are paying the price.

Holden and Maxwell are quick to state that most Missouri nursing homes provide good care. And, for these, they recommend decreasing state inspections in order to put limited resources on the ones that need the attention. That is an acceptable trade-off to encourage homes with good performance.

But what Holden calls the "bad actors" need to be cleaned up or driven from the state. Missouri should make sure seniors' health and safety are well protected in their last years.