Nursing homes seek legal immunity during coronavirus

AARP is enlisting its state offices nationwide in the fight. “Governors across the country will be hearing from us over the coming weeks,” says Elaine Ryan, the organization's vice

president for state advocacy and strategy integration. “These things are truly outrageous and an erosion of residents’ rights." EXISTING PROTECTIONS FOR NURSING HOMES Many nursing homes

experiencing devastating COVID-19 outbreaks — New Jersey's Andover Subacute and Rehab Center I and II, and California's Gateway Care and Rehabilitation Facility, for example —

were cited by health inspectors for failing to implement proper infection control prior to the pandemic. Those facilities are not anomalies; 63 percent of nursing homes were cited for one or

more infection-control deficiencies during the most recent two inspection periods, according to a Kaiser Health News analysis of federal records. Gough wants accountability for “those who,

leading into this, had a bad track record and allowed their facility to get hit harder than it needed to because they didn't do what they knew they should do.” Immunity will make that

difficult. That's particularly true in New York, whose immunity order absolves nursing homes of responsibility for keeping certain records during the pandemic. Without those records,

Gough says, plaintiffs will be hard-pressed to substantiate even cases of gross negligence. So far, Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan,

Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin have passed immunity measures for nursing homes. Legislation has been

introduced in Minnesota, Missouri and Ohio. The measures differ slightly from state to state, but most shield facilities from civil claims only, and just for the duration of the COVID-19

emergency. The American Health Care Association, which is leading the national lobbying effort for nursing home immunity, did not respond to a request for comment. In Florida, where 20

percent of the country's long-term care deaths from COVID-19 have occurred, there's mounting pressure from industry to pass immunity. Mariano Gracia, an attorney who handles

nursing home negligence claims in the state, says laws there already offer protection from frivolous suits.