Lawmakers vow to pursue nursing home reforms in the wake of the Independence warehouse calamity, but one state representative told WWL’s Tommy Tucker it won't be easy.
“You have to recognize that they are a powerful group in Baton Rouge, and they don’t lose very often,” said Prairieville lawmaker Tony Bacala.
Five deaths were directly linked to the storm-related warehouse conditions, where 843 nursing home residents were crammed into a facility built for 300 for several days after the storm.
Bacala said it could be an uphill battle if the industry chafes at the kinds of reforms that will be needed to make sure a situation like Independence never happens again, but he’s optimistic.
“I think that most of them would recognize that most of them need a greater degree of oversight and responsibility for evacuation,” said Bacala.
Post-Katrina nursing home tragedies spurred a number of successful industry reform efforts, including evacuation policy. Bacala said lawmakers intend to dig into how that policy allowed for the warehouse situation to occur. The Louisiana Department of Health argues the warehouse was only authorized as a brief staging ground for nursing home evacuees to ride out a major storm, and not a longer-term option.
