Nursing home sprinkler bills advance
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Two bills by Rep. Charles Curtiss, D-Sparta, to stiffen fire safety requirements after two deadly fires in the past six months at homes for the elderly were passed out of a House subcommittee.
The first bill mandates that alarms be added to every nursing home room within 90 days of it becoming law, which could be anytime within the next three months.
The second bill would require all multistory nursing homes to have a full sprinkler system in place by June 30, 2005. Single-story nursing homes are given until Dec. 31, 2005, to meet that requirement.
The House’s Health Care Facilities subcommittee approved both of the bills by unanimous voice vote after hearing testimony from the relatives of the five victims killed after a fire last month at the Home Away From Home retirement home in Maryville.
“How many more lives will be lost before the laws are changed?” asked Charlene Walker, whose mother, Patty Frye, died seven days after being injured in the fire.
She presented the committee with a petition bearing 3,500 signatures urging the Legislature to require sprinklers in all nursing homes.
“This will protect your grandparents, your parents — and you,” she said.
Phyllis Geiger, whose mother was severely injured in the fire but survived, said her mother was fine until the fire and now — and for the rest of her life — will deal with multiple problems because of it.
“Please, pass a law requiring sprinklers. Please do that,” she said.
The Home Away From Home fire followed by four months a fire at a Nashville nursing home that killed eight people outright. An additional six residents died in the months afterward, although it is not clear to what extent their deaths were related to the fire.
Tennessee law requires all nursing homes built since 1994 to have sprinkler systems, but homes in existence when that requirement was passed were exempted from it.
Both of the homes where the recent fatal fires occurred were in the exempt category.
Curtiss said the requirements were staggered to give nursing homes time to plan for the renovations they’ll need, and to ease the crunch on installation companies.
The installations will have a total cost of $17.9 million over five years, Curtiss estimates, with about $6 million of that borne by the state.
The legislation discussed Wednesday only applies to nursing homes, but other bills pending in the General Assembly would strengthen sprinkler laws for facilities licensed as residential homes for the aged and assisted living centers.
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