URGENT – Committee Ok with Patients Being Left Alone
By David Ferguson
Arkansas’ No Patient Left Alone law has helped families like mine, but hospitals and other medical facilities have tried to read into the law loopholes to keep families from being with and helping their loved ones in the time of their medical need.
It is gut wrenching to think about your loved one being alone in a hospital or nursing home during sickness.
In my experience, doctors, nurses, and nurses’ assistants do a great job of taking care of patients. But they can’t be everywhere all the time. Just having a family member with you is a comfort. More so to have family there to give a sip of water, adjust a pillow, help them call a nurse, or just hold their hand.
Now imagine a scared sick child being left alone because a facility doesn’t want to be inconvenienced.
The No Patient Left Alone law was sponsored by Representative Julie Mayberry in 2021. She is back this legislative session with HB1509 to amend the law to close some loopholes the hospitals and facilities have created. The bill specifically addresses the needs of children for their parents, allows overnight stays, allows clergy visits when requested, and includes outpatient facilities under the law. Because some facilities have chosen to ignore the law, the bill also adds penalties.
HB1509 was not controversial in the House of Representatives and was overwhelmingly passed with 93 Representatives voting “YES.” But once the bill went to the Senate it has been bottled up in the Senate Public Health Welfare and Labor Committee for weeks, where the bill may die. Just four Senators can stop a bill from getting out of committee.
By not sending the bill to the Senate for a full vote, the committee is saying it is okay for you or a loved one to be sick alone, and perhaps die alone, if a hospital or facility doesn’t want to be bothered by family.
I can’t express how grateful I am to Representative Mayberry for giving my brother and I the right to help care for our father as his condition worsened and as he died. I can’t imagine our father having to be alone during that time because of some facility rule. (Here is what I wrote in 2021 about our experience.)
I don’t want your loved one to be left alone in a medical facility. Please, contact the Senate committee members and your Senator and ask them to pass HB1509 out of committee so it may be voted on by the full Senate. Act now because the legislative session is about to end.
I am confident that if the bill gets to the full Senate it will pass overwhelmingly as it did in the House of Representatives.
PUBLIC HEALTH, WELFARE AND LABOR COMMITTEE – SENATE
Chair – Senator Missy Irvin
Vice-Chair – Senator Dan Sullivan
Senator Justin Boyd
Senator Scott Flippo
Senator Bryan King
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Senator Clint Penzo
Senator David Wallace
