A Massachusetts state representative wants to pause a pandemic-inspired rule limiting nursing homes to two beds per room for a year in the wake of four nursing homes on the western side of the state shuttering.
The pause also would give legislators time to “fully explore options regarding both the mandate and the rate of reimbursement,” the letter from Rep. Bud Williams (D-11th Hampden) to Acting Secretary of Health and Human Services Mary Beckman.
In an interview with McKnights Long Term Care News on Wednesday, Williams said he and his colleagues were caught off-guard by the announcement last week that Northeast Health Group Inc. will close Chapin Center in Springfield; Governor’s Center in Westfield; and Willimansett Center East and West, both in Chicopee.
“We didn’t receive anything,” Williams told McKnights, adding that legislators are sometimes “the last line of defense” against such dramatic community impacts.
Williams said he spoke with Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll who indicated that a meeting with the administration will be scheduled in the “very, very near future.”
In April 2021, the health department instituted the rule prohibiting more than two beds per room in nursing homes as part of the state’s infection control protocols against the spread of COVID-19. When that restriction went into effect a month later, it contributed to the existential labor crisis similar to what is happening around the country. Massachusetts has lost 25 nursing homes since the start of the pandemic, at least half of which closed over the last 12 months.
Tara Gregoria, president of the Massachusetts Senior Care Association, suggested that the state apply a two-bed-per-room rule only to newly constructed facilities or to facility expansions. The organization also wants the Department of Health and Human Services to convene a working group to make evidence-based recommendations on infection prevention. Group members would include nursing home providers, infection control specialists, architects, and others with insight into facility design to look at how homes can make air system upgrades, set up non-permeable partitions, hand-free sinks, and other innovations to mitigate virus spread.
The four facilities that plan to close on June 6 housed three or four residents per room. Closure plans submitted to the Department of Health for each nursing home state that they are operating at financial losses and approaching insolvency because of the rule.
“The changed regulation had a lot to do with safety, but we’re at a different point with the virus, and I think we need to revisit this,” Williams said. “When you get smaller [facilities] like these and you reduce their capacity, it really affects their bottom line and the quality of life there. We’re losing jobs and losing beds.”Williams’ letter indicated that the region stands to lose a projected 362 jobs after the facilities close. He wants the regulation paused until March 1, 2024. He also hopes that the new Health Secretary who begins her term on March 1 will understand the need to suspend the rule.
