Grassley, chairman of the Special Committee on Aging, devotes much of the Committee's resources to improving the quality of care in nursing homes. In July, he convened a hearing to release the most comprehensive study of nursing home staffing shortages to date. The study, years late, linked staff shortages to severe bedsores, malnutrition and dehydration.
"I'm interested in the substance of the President's remarks tomorrow," Grassley said. "If he presents a staffing proposal and later approaches me with it, I'll take a careful look at it. We might share goals and priorities for improving the number of trained staff who care for nursing home residents."
At his July hearing, Grassley featured researchers who presented the first part of a nursing home staffing study that Congress mandated in 1990, with an original due date of Jan. 1, 1992. The initial findings concluded that nationwide, more than half ? 54 percent ? of nursing homes are below the suggested minimum staffing level for nurses aides. These aides are the lowest paid and least trained of all nursing home staff, yet perform most of the feeding and bathing of patients.
Grassley said he is looking into tying a funding increase for nursing homes to staffing. Congress is considering a proposal to give the nursing home industry some of the Medicare money cut in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. A give-back bill is likely this fall.
"The suffering of nursing home residents is intolerable," Grassley said. "Bedsores and malnutrition turn the stomach and hurt the conscience. They beg for a solution, the sooner, the better."