CT Hospice says it can’t provide home care under bill to protect healthcare workers

CT Hospice says it can’t provide home care under bill to protect healthcare workers
CT News Junkie, by John Ferraro; 4/16/24
Connecticut Hospice has warned lawmakers it will be unable to care for gravely ill patients in their homes under a proposed law aimed at protecting home healthcare workers. At issue is Senate Bill 1, which would require organizations that care for people in their homes to conduct background checks on the clients and anyone in the location where care is being given. ... Barbara Pearce, the chief executive officer of Connecticut Hospice, urged lawmakers to remove Connecticut Hospice from entities that would be required to conduct those background checks, noting that the organization which provides end-of-life care is typically called into homes when a patient has days left to live. “Our national hospice organization could find no similar bill in any other state,” Pearce wrote in testimony to the Public Health Committee. “This bill is too broad, too unclear as to requirements, not guaranteed to achieve its aims, duplicative of other procedures required in hospice care, and contradictory to certain regulations of Medicare.” ...
Editor's Note: See the previous article in our newsletter today, After death of nurses, CT lawmakers look for solutions: 'We just cannot ignore that risk'.