Eight horrible deaths in one skilled nursing facility should not result in new regulations.
By now we have all heard about the disaster at the skilled nursing facility in Hollywood, Florida where eight residents died from the heat during Hurricane Irma. It never should have happened, and we all have to wonder what the staff was thinking when inside temperatures soared and vital signs hit the danger zone.
What we should have expected is politicians, regulators and other groups demanding more staffing so something like this does not happen again. While I agree that this should never happen again, I don’t agree that staffing levels should be re-evaluated as a result of one horrible event. And the one thing that none of these politicians bring up is, who will pay for any of these changes, if any come?
Florida just filed for an emergency rule requiring that both assisted living and skilled nursing facilities file a plan within 60 days to acquire a generator that can keep the building’s air temperature at 80 degrees for four days. While that makes sense, and we assumed they already had them, generators alone will not solve the problem, especially if you are six feet under water, or have no roof. Please, let’s not re-examine an entire sector because of one bad apple. Skilled nursing owners have enough headwinds to deal with.
