Iowa Republican must revive legislative oversight

Iowa ranks 49th in the ratio of inspectors compared to nursing homes, according to a U.S. Senate committee report released this year. So it’s not much of a surprise that some long-term care facilities waited up to 41 months for an “annual” state inspection.

Federal rules require inspections at least every 15.9 months. But in Iowa, more than 150 facilities’ inspection gap was 16 months or more. That means if nursing homes are breaking rules, it will be a long time before the state can address the problems.

We know these numbers because of tenacious reporting by the Iowa Capital Dispatch’s Clark Kauffman. Kauffman has also chronicled horror stories of abuse, neglect and death.

Residents of care centers in Bondurant and Spirit Lake wandered away from those facilities and froze to death. In the Bondurant case, staff reportedly ignored alarms warning that someone left the building.

In West Des Moines, a 70-year-old woman had emergency surgery to amputate her foot, which was diagnosed with gangrene, blood poisoning and other series conditions. The resident reported she had not been given prescribed foot care.

In Sioux City, after a resident reported being raped by a staff member, she was taken out of the facility and left at a homeless shelter. The list goes on.

And yet, when Democrats called last week for majority Senate Republicans to call a Government Oversight Committee meeting to investigate these problems, GOP senators refused.

Republicans contended that a meeting would distract state staff monitoring nursing homes. They also pointed to 2,800 citations issued during the last 12 months, as if that’s evidenced the system is working.

The also pointed to tens of millions of dollars lawmakers and Gov. Kim Reynolds have handed to nursing homes to improve care. But is the state keeping track of how that money is being spent. Advocates for the elderly argue state oversight is lax.

It’s the Legislature’s job to provide oversight of executive branch agencies and actions. If the state is dropping the ball on monitoring these facilities and deterring infractions, the Legislature should seek to ask why. The Government Oversight Committee is tasked with that work.

But Republicans who control the Senate and House have largely abandoned oversight. The Senate Government Oversight Committee didn’t hold a meaningful meeting in the last two legislative sessions.

The fact that majority lawmakers are neither outraged nor curious about what’s happening in Iowa nursing home should give pause to all Iowans, regardless of party affiliation. Protecting the vulnerable is a fundamental duty of government. Refusing to provide oversight is a dereliction of that duty.

(319) 398-8262; editorial@thegazette.com