A bill schedule for a vote in the Rhode Island Senate Thursday would for the first time mandate minimum staffing levels for the state’s nursing homes.
The bill introduced by Senator Maryellen Goodwin would require all state licensed nursing homes to provide each resident with 4.10 hours of direct nursing care per day. The Senate Committee on Health and Human Services voted unanimously on Monday to send the bill to the full Senate, which could vote on the measure as early as Thursday, said Sen. Josh Miller, the committee’s chairman.
A similar bill introduced by Goodwin (D-Providence) in 2019 passed in the Senate but failed to win approval by the House.
“I think there’s a comprehensive understanding that didn’t exist before (the pandemic),’’ Miller said. “Not only how many hours they’re allowed to work and wages… (but) that we really expect a lot from them.”
The latest bill comes amid heightened awareness of the challenges faced by nursing homes, which, in Rhode Island account for about 80% of all deaths related to COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, according to the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation.
Chronic staffing shortages at nursing homes have been exacerbated during the pandemic, as staff have fallen ill and administrators say they’ve had trouble finding replacements.
Rhode Island nursing homes averaged less than 3.2 hours of direct nursing care per resident per day, according to fourth-quarter 2019 federal data compiled by the Long-Term Care Community Coalition, a national nonprofit based in New York. The measurement does not include staff time designated for administrative or non-care functions.
Nursing home industry leaders have opposed the minimum staffing bill, saying it amounts to an unfunded mandate that will push already financially ailing homes over the brink.
“If we were given the proper amount of funding…we would be able to hire more staff, increase the wages of our current workers and continue to provide high quality care,’’ Scott Fraser, president and CEO of the Rhode Island Health Care Association, said in an email. The trade group represents the state’s for-profit nursing homes. (See testimony here.)
Raise The Bar, on Resident Care, a coalition of labor unions and community groups, has pressed for Rhode Island to adopt the minimum staffing legislation, along with better pay to help improve recruiting and retention of workers.
On Tuesday, the union representing more than 800 nursing home workers in Rhode Island announced that it has issued a “strike notice” for three nursing homes: Genesis HealthCare in Pawtucket; Hopkins Manor in North Providence and Greenville Skilled Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Smithfield. The nursing homes’ contracts with Local 1199 New England of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) expired more than a year ago, the union said in a statement. The workers have voted to strike on July 29 if the two sides are unable to reach a settlement of the union’s proposal to “achieve safer staffing for residents, and reclaim and recruit quality caregivers,” the statement said.
Fraser, the nursing home industry leader, says the staffing problems are due to low reimbursement rates by Medicaid, the government insurance program for low-income and disabled residents, which covers about two-thirds of the state’s nursing home residents.
“There is no way homes can comply with the provisions of this bill and stay in business,” Fraser said in a statement. “It really is that simple.”
–Lynn Arditi, health reporter for The Public’s Radio, can be reached at larditi@thepublicsradio.org.
Correction: Members of Local 1199 of the SEIU have voted to authorize the union to strike on July 29; an earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the timing of the vote.
