Small price to protect frail Oklahomans

4-19-2012 Oklahoma:

How much is it worth to make sure your loved one - your mother, grandmother, father, grandfather or child - who lives in a long-term care facility or who uses home care is protected from potential abuse?

What if we could add an extra layer of protection for Oklahomans who use home-care providers for about the same price as it costs to have a Big Mac at McDonald's? The answer is simple: Most of us would gladly pay $4 to ensure Oklahoma's most frail and vulnerable residents are protected from potential abusers.

Special interests at the state Capitol are working hard to defeat a bill in the Legislature that would require nursing homes, assisted living and residential care facilities and home-care providers to perform fingerprint-based, nationwide background checks on future employees with direct patient access.

Twice, AARP has stood up to these powerful special interests who think $4 is too much for home-care providers to pay to add fingerprints to background checks when they currently are not required to check the Sex Offender and Violent Offender Registries when conducting background checks on future employees.

And now, unless the state Senate votes on House Bill 2582 by April 26, and ensures the bill eventually becomes law, Oklahoma will send a powerful message to the rest of the country: Four dollars - less than the cost of a car wash - is just too much money to protect our most frail and vulnerable residents from potential abusers.

What does this say about Oklahoma? Are profits more important than the safety of our nursing home, long-term care and home-care patients? Can we put a price on the safety of these people, many of whom are older and disabled?

The facts are clear: Significant evidence exists that there are employees working in Oklahoma long-term care facilities who have been charged with harmful acts in other states. They simply cross state lines and work in our long-term care facilities because we don't require home-care providers to check the Sex Offender and Violent Offender Registries. This bill would broaden the law and require home-care providers to check those registries.

HB 2582 wouldn't require any additional costs to nursing homes, assisted living or residential care providers. That's why, in addition to AARP, the Oklahoma Department of Health and the Oklahoma Aging Partnership, many nursing homes, assisted living and residential providers support HB 2582.

Even though we know all this, some home-care providers and their powerful lobbyists still oppose adding fingerprint-based, national background checks for future employees because it would cost them $4 - less than a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

This is not a partisan issue. It is about protecting the safety and well-being of older Oklahomans. What the Oklahoma Senate does on HB 2582 will directly impact thousands of our most frail and vulnerable residents.

We think $4 is not too much to pay to keep those Oklahomans safe. ..Source.. by Marjorie Lyons