I-1163 Closes the Background Check Loophole
The people of Washington State have made it clear they want our most vulnerable seniors and people with disabilities to be protected. I-1163 will require federal FBI background checks for long-term care workers. This basic, common sense protection will help make sure our seniors don’t fall prey to elder abuse or fraud at the hands of unscrupulous home care workers.
According to Adult Protective Services, reports of abuse increased 31.5 percent from 2001-2009. These abuses include: physical abuse, mental abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, self-neglect, financial exploitation, personal exploitation, and abandonment. Since voters overwhelmingly passed I-1029 in 2008, Residential Care Services, which investigates allegations against employees or volunteers of long term care facilities, reported an increase in citations of more than 15 percent percent in adult family homes, to more than 20,000 in 2010.
The recent extensive Seattle Times investigation detailed hundreds of these cases, while noting that many of the homes involved employed untrained workers who often had felony convictions. In Washington, while a state background check is done, no FBI check is required, meaning a worker who committed a felony in another state could easily move to Washington and be hired without ever being checked.
A Tacoma Adult Family Home, Narrows View Manor, has been cited with more serious violations than any other home, including fatal neglect. State inspectors cited the home’s owner, Arlie Leno and employees for hiring caregivers with felony convictions (e.g. felony assault) that should have disqualified them from working with vulnerable adults; lying to state investigators and fabricating records; and failing to provide proper care for 32 days to Nadra McSherry, an 88-year-old woman who died from untreated pressure sores. Additionally, DSHS found that Narrows View had failed to train staff and to screen them for infectious diseases; failed to create a ‘care plan’ for each resident. The care plan is a critical blueprint that tells staff exactly what care each resident requires: what medications to take and when, how often a resident has to be turned to avoid bedsores, what diet to follow, and so on.
In Washington, the owner of Narrows View Manor is not required to perform the FBI background check that would prevent the hiring of a convicted felon. This defies common sense and opens our most vulnerable the possibility of abuse and neglect, despite our ability to prevent it. I-1163 would restore this common sense protection.
