A Kentucky state senator wants to force local nursing homes to establish minimum staff-to-patient ratios as a condition of receiving their operating licenses.
Sen. Tom Buford (R-Nicholasville) recently introduced his Senate Bill 206, which would impose penalties on facilities caught without enough staffers on hand, the Lexington Herald Leader reported. The bill does not yet establish a specific ratio, but is tasking the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services with working out the math.
“It’s not rocket science,” Buford told the newspaper. “When you have elderly people in your care, you need to be checking on them regularly, and if you don’t have enough people on staff, you simply can’t do that.”
The report notes that about 43% of Kentucky’s 284 nursing homes last year were rated as “below” average by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Buford has previously pushed such legislation with more specific ratios, which ultimately failed, but he left the methodology open this time for the cabinet to decide based on other states’ practices.
Local nursing home industry advocates have opposed such efforts in the past, the Herald Leader noted.
