Sen Amy Sinclair is making our Nursing Home Crisis Worse

Governor Robert Ray enacted the Care Review Advocate Program in the 1970s to provide a voice for those in our nursing homes who either had no family or no close family. I was a member of this group from 2002-2016.

During these years our help from the state went from excellent to nearly nil. The Office of the Long Term Care Ombudsman became crippled by lack of funding and personnel. By 2016, this program was virtually dead.

The results? Iowa ranks last in the nation for the number of nursing home inspectors per capita. Just this past December, Iowa Republicans turned down a formal request for a state oversight meeting to investigate our nursing home crisis.

Sen Sinclair herself said she would not schedule a meeting to make this happen and pointed to the 2,800 citations made in the last 12 months to demonstrate how serious the state takes the issue of elder care.

Citations are not enough, especially when corporations can pay their way out of them. It’s clear that Iowa does not have the oversight or manpower to address the citations.

Not addressing why citations happen doesn’t lead to change. Accountability does.

Sinclair continued to say that they have increased funding for nursing homes and implemented tort reform, which set a hard cap on non-economic damages in malpractice suits, handicapping our ability to hold care facilities accountable. And despite increased money for nursing homes, we aren’t seeing drastic increases in staff salaries.

Employees don’t leave nursing homes because they don’t want to work hard; they don’t feel valued for the hard work they are doing.

Are Sinclair’s inactions surprising? No. She has taken over $15,000 from nursing home PACs that protect corporate nursing home owners. PACs that have fought against issues like mandated staff ratios and fought for issues like tort reform to lower their operating costs.

Twenty-seven nursing homes have closed since 2022. Our loved ones deserve to age with dignity and quality care.

Vote for Nicole Loew, a nurse who has worked in nursing homes. Let’s get the care we deserve.

Joan Peterson

Osceola, Iowa