Governor signs fire safety notification bill
NASHVILLE (AP) — Gov. Phil Bredesen on Thursday signed into law a bill requiring nursing homes to tell prospective residents if the facilities do not have full sprinkler systems, smoke detectors and smoke alarms.
Flanked by the bill’s sponsors, Sen. Thelma Harper and Rep. Janice Sontany, Bredesen approved the first of what likely will be several bills to grow out of two fatal fires at residences for the elderly within the past six months — one in Nashville and one in Maryville. Neither home was equipped with sprinkler systems.
The measure goes into effect July 1, the beginning of the new fiscal year.
“It is the first step in addressing these issues,” Bredesen said after the signing. “It’s a piece of information I sure would like to have if I were faced with the issue of my mother or my father in a home like that.”
The bill’s provisions would extend to assisted living centers and residential homes for the aged, as well as nursing homes. It would require a separate disclosure of the home’s fire safety equipment, to be signed and witnessed at the time a contract for residency was finalized. The information also must be posted throughout the nursing home itself.
“Everyone needs to have as much information as possible when they have to place a family member or friend in a nursing home,” Sontany, D-Nashville, said. “This will be one more piece of information for them to consider.”
Legislation requiring the installation of sprinkler systems at the more than 70 nursing homes currently without them advanced in the General Assembly earlier this week. The bill would require all multistory facilities to have them in place by June 30, 2005, while single-story nursing homes would have until Dec. 31, 2005.
Tennessee law requires all nursing homes built since 1994 to have sprinkler systems, but homes in existence when that requirement was passed were exempt. Both of the sites where the recent fatal fires occurred were exempt.
In the meantime, a third bill pending in the Legislature mandates that alarms be added to every nursing home room within 90 days of the measure becoming law, which could be anytime within the next three months.
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On the Net:
Read House Bill 2198/Senate Bill 2079: http://www.legislature.state.tn.us