Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL 23rd District), and fellow Demo congresswoman, Fredericka Wilson (D-FL 24th District) are planning to introduce legislation in the U.S. House to prevent another Rehabilitation Center of Hollywood Hills (FL) event.
The event — a power outage caused by Tropical Cyclone (Hurricane) Irma cost the lives of 14 Center residents.
The problem is: Neither congresswoman has a clue to the underlying problem and, consequently, their expensive “fix” will prove useless.
Wasserman-Schultz (in)famously distinguished herself by being fired from her job as DNC chair1 and, in the process, helped her candidate lose the election.
She also is known among many of her constituents as not being particularly helpful when her assistance is requested.
Wasserman-Schultz made local tv news on Monday, October 23, 2017, when she told tv reporters that she was introducing legislation to require nursing home owners to install back-up electricity generators with sufficient fuel for 90 hours. She also wants to make restoration of power a Priority One for the power companies.
Given her brief time in front of the cameras, she lacked the time to note her Miami colleague, Rep. Wilson, was introducing a similar bill. Wilson was beating the drums for such legislation even before the Center disaster in which 14 people lost their lives2.
The Problem
Forcing nursing home to install emergency generators with 90 hour — or even 90 day — fuel supplies is a bandage; a bandage that will cause push-back from nursing home owners — many of whom are politically powerful and have influence with both parties — that will tie up any legislation for years if not decades.
Lack of emergency generators, which are prone to failure in any event even if there is abundant fuel for them, is not the problem.
Neither is forcing the power companies to make nursing homes a restoration Priority One — along with hospitals, shelters, and other Priority Ones.
The solution to the problem is basically simple:
Force nursing home to implement policies and procedures— and to practice them — that will move residents to other locations “in the event of.”
Caveat: When I was a young lad I was a military medic; I know moving a patient is NOT the first option. I later worked as an Enterprise Risk Management practitioner who played the “What if?” game to identify risks and to find ways to avoid or mitigate the discovered risks.
The Rehabilitation Center of Hollywood Hills, the immediate focus of the proposed legislation, is across the street from a Level One trauma center, Memorial Regional Hospital. Literally across the street.
The hospital, which DOES have — and practices — policies and procedures “in the event of,” had space available to accommodate the Center’s residents. Memorial discharged as many patients as possible before the storm, and rescheduled admissions until after the storm passed. (The Emergency Room remained open and staff was on hand to care for patients forced to remain in the facility.)
Irma’s intensity was not consistent throughout its “stay” in Hollywood. (I know; I’m a Hollywood resident who “rode out” the storm at the house.) Between wind and rain bands, patients could have been moved to Memorial. Ambulances could have shuttled between the Center and the hospital when other forms of resident transport were contra-indicated.
The power issue timeline3 reads like a “He said, She said.” The bottom line is that when temperatures inside the Center started to rise, and then resident body temperatures also rose, the Center should have initiated evacuation of the most sensitive residents.
Again, a Level One trauma center with available space was just across the street. If the Center’s personnel were not qualified to move residents, Memorial had staff to move them … in the end, Memorial personnel moved residents to the hospital or helped evacuate them to other facilities.
The congresswomen want to penalize the nursing homes for failing to have long-term emergency power. Better, congress should insist that these facilities
- (a) have policies in place “in the event of” and
(b) practice implementing the procedures “in the event of”
“In the event of” is not limited to loss of commercial power nor is it limited to relocating residents and personnel. It must — must — cover all eventualities.
What congress should do is to insist that every nursing home and medical facility have well-publicized and practiced policies and procedures and that (at least) twice-a-year exercises are monitored by outside teams. In the case of Rehabilitation Center of Hollywood Hills, both the local fire department’s Emergency Medical personnel and Memorial personnel — doctors, nurses, and other patient care personnel — should monitor the exercises.
Should residents be relocated during the exercise? Preferably no, but perhaps one in four exercises should include relocating patients. The VA hospital in St. Petersburg FL recruits volunteers as “patients” when it does its annual, in the public's eye, exercise.
Depending upon generators is, at best, foolish.
- Is the fuel supply reliable?
Will the generators start when needed?
Will the generators perform to specifications under full load and for how long?
Are the generators sufficient to provide power for all the facility’s needs?
I have “sticked” more than a few fuel supplies, and I have manually confirmed that generator batteries were charged (else I would be pulling starter ropes in the rain). I am not a generator expert; I don’t know ALL the things that can fail. I do know that “things happen.” The only way to prepare to respond when “things happen” is to have practiced policies and procedures in place.
Fourteen people died. Useless legislation is being proposed — and may never be passed, depending on the clout of the nursing home industry.
Legislation, preferably STATE legislation perhaps based on Federal guidelines for a more or less national consistency, is needed.
But not misguided legislation that fails to address the core problem.
References
1. Fired: http://tinyurl.com/yb8k5ntv
2. Wilson before event: http://tinyurl.com/y7u9et9d
3. Timeline: http://tinyurl.com/ybjg38nv
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
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