Positive step for troubled veterans' homes?

With a possible Justice Department lawsuit against the state looming, new amendment looks to provide oversight and bring clinical experience to bear in administration of the state's troubled veterans' nursing homes

Nashvillepost.com
May 6, 2008

After months of wrangling on Capitol Hill, legislators are nearing an agreed upon plan to begin turning the state’s troubled veterans nursing homes back onto the right path.

The amendment, which represents a compromise between the proposals of the Bredesen administration and Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris (R-Collierville), will tweak the make-up of the current Tennessee State Veterans’ Home Board and provide more oversight than the current set-up.

Should the amendment pass, the board will expand to 13 members – 11 honorably discharged vets along with a nursing home administrator and a member with clinical nursing home experience. Finance Commissioner Dave Goetz and Veteran Affairs Commissioner John Keys will serve as ex-officio voting members of the board as well.

Additionally, there will be an executive committee to the board that will include Goetz, one of the members with nursing experience, and a third member chosen from the remaining board members.

The expanded board will be required to submit annual reports to the governor and to members of the house and senate government operations committees and the joint select committee on veterans' affairs.

Nevertheless, many on Capitol Hill still expect the state to be sued by the Department of Justice over previously appalling conditions at the homes that were detailed in a 45-page DOJ report sent to Gov. Bredesen in February.

That report listed a number of gruesome incidents at homes in both Murfreesboro and Humboldt, including, among other things, festering sores down to the bone as well as patients requiring hospitalization for dehydration and starvation. Many of the incidents contributed to patient deaths.

The deadline has since passed for the state to show that the conditions have improved.

Today, members of the Bredesen administration were attempting to get the amendment passed through committee while Norris’ camp is looking to present it tomorrow on the Senate floor.