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Bill Would Ensure All Nursing Homes Have Sprinkler Systems
By Peter Eisler, USA Today
October 24, 2005
Lawmakers, groups push safety changes.
Federal officials are considering tougher fire safety standards for nursing homes and promising to create a public listing of facilities that lack sprinklers and other basic protections.
Members of Congress, patients' advocates and the nursing home industry itself are pressing for the changes following USA TODAY stories reporting that two-thirds of all nursing homes violate fire safety standards each year and are seldom penalized. The stories, published Oct. 7-9, also found that loopholes in federal regulations let thousands of nursing homes operate without the sprinklers and smoke alarms often required in buildings used by the public.
"It's unconscionable that we would allow frail elderly people to be in this position," says Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
King, and Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., are introducing a bill to require sprinklers in all nursing homes. The bill also would provide federal grants and low-interest loans to help pay installation costs.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that regulates nursing homes, is "seriously considering" a sprinkler mandate, says Thomas Hamilton, head of nursing home oversight programs at CMS.
CMS has long required that nursing homes be built with sprinkler systems, smoke alarms and other modern fire protections. But older nursing homes, built before those rules took effect, generally are allowed to go without them. About 3,500 of the nation's 16,000 nursing homes lack complete sprinkler coverage.
The American Health Care Association, the largest nursing home industry group, also urged "a more forceful CMS position" toward sprinkler installation in an Oct. 10 letter to the agency.
The CMS also plans to update its public website in mid-2006 with a nationwide listing of which nursing homes do and do not have complete sprinkler systems.
Larson and King acknowledge that it will be tough to persuade Congress to commit funds in a time of budget cuts and big deficits. But they say they believe they can make the case, noting that two fires at homes without sprinklers in Hartford, Conn., and Nashville killed 31 patients in 2003. Nursing home industry groups and fire safety organizations also back the bill.
Of the 18 worst nursing home fires since Congress first began mandating fire safety standards for the industry in 1970 - blazes that together killed more than 200 patients - every one occurred in a nursing home without sprinklers in patient rooms and corridors.
No nursing home fire has killed more than two people in a facility with a full sprinkler system.
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