Editor's Note: This post was updated on Dec. 15 at 8:45 a.m. to include comment from Sen. Amy Sinclair.
Iowa Senate Democrats are requesting a government oversight meeting to look into the state’s nursing homes, amid reports of severe abuse and neglect at some facilities.
On Thursday, Senate Democrats sent a letter to Sen. Amy Sinclair, R-Allerton, the chair of the Senate Government Oversight Committee, formally requesting a public meeting on nursing homes following disturbing reports from the media and state inspectors.
"It is painfully clear that the State of Iowa is not taking its responsibility to care for vulnerable Iowans seriously. Consequently, some residents of Iowa’s nursing facilities are in grave danger of neglect, abuse and death," the letter said.
During a Thursday press conference, Sen. Claire Celsi, D-West Des Moines, said a public meeting would shed light into the current issues at Iowa nursing facilities.
"This would be industry members, members of the public, folks that have been affected by the nursing home crisis," she said. "So people that know more than politicians do about what's happening in our nursing homes."
Sen. Pam Jocum, D-Dubuque, said legislators need to move quickly on this issue to keep Iowa's seniors safe.
"As legislators, we have also received numerous emails and phone calls from our constituents, who have expressed to us concerns about the care of their loved ones, in nursing facilities in their communities. This is a very serious issue," she said.
Democrats said they plan to introduce legislation next session that would increase oversight and inspections at nursing homes and invest more in community-based care.
In a statement issued Thursday evening, Sen. Sinclair declined to schedule a Government Oversight Committee meeting because it would "distract department staff from performing their important work monitoring these facilities.”
"In the past 12 months over 2,800 citations were issued by regulators. That number of citations demonstrates how serious the state takes the issue of elder care," she said. "To address workforce shortages in the industry, since 2017 the Senate has increased funding for nursing home care by nearly $75 million, increased incentives for high quality of care to over $111 million, and passed critical tort reforms to ensure nursing homes can continue to provide services in rural Iowa.
Iowa has more than 400 nursing home facilities across the state.
In the past two years, nearly 30 nursing homes have closed, many in rural areas, according to the Iowa Department of Inspection and Appeals.
In September, the Biden administration unveiled a controversial set of proposals aimed at increasing residents' safety that would set minimum staffing levels for the nation's nursing homes and increase facilities' accountability for care under the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The American Health Care Association and the Iowa Health Care Association, which represents the majority of Iowa's nursing homes, have opposed Biden's the staffing proposal, saying it could cause more facilities to close amid a growing industry-wide staffing crisis.
Last month, Gov. Kim Reynolds along with Gov. Jim Pillen of Nebraska and 13 other Republican governors sent a letter to the Biden administration opposing the staffing proposal over concerns about facility closures and "eroding access to healthcare for some of our most vulnerable citizens" and called for a "genuine state-federal dialogue on how to best serve residents of long-term care facilities."
