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WILKES-BARRE &mdash; Speaker of the House Mike Turzai Tuesday said protecting our most vulnerable citizens is the top job of government during the COVID pandemic, and &ldquo;thanks to the lack of state action,&rdquo; it has become an urgent situation.
				Responding to published reports and &ldquo;finally released data&rdquo; regarding COVID-19 deaths occurring among Pennsylvanians living in the state&rsquo;s nursing home facilities, personal care homes and assisted living residences, Turzai, R-Allegheny, and Reps. Harry Readshaw, D-Allegheny, and Bill Kortz, D-Allegheny, introduced legislation &mdash; House Bill 2510 &mdash; to help these facilities keep loved ones safe.
				&ldquo;The Senior Protection Act, developed by medical experts, is a data-driven direct response to the COVID-19 crisis here,&rdquo; Turzai said. &ldquo;Senior adults, many with underlying health issues, deserve to live in facilities following the best medical practices, and their families deserve the peace of mind.&rdquo;
				According to the Pennsylvania Health Care Association, there are approximately 123,000 individuals living in 697 nursing facilities, 1,143 personal care homes and 58 assisted living residences throughout Pennsylvania. These facilities employ 143,000 people.
				As of yesterday, according to the Department of Health, there are 11,801 resident cases of COVID-19 and 1,655 cases among employees, for a total of 13,456 at 540 distinct nursing and personal care facilities in 44 counties.
				As reported by the Department of Health Monday, Pennsylvania has had 3,731 deaths attributable to COVID-19. Of those 3,731 deaths, 2,552, or 68%, were citizens who lived in a nursing home or personal care home.
				In Speaker Turzai&rsquo;s home county of Allegheny, 94 of the 123 deaths occurred among residents of those facilities. That means 76% of those who have died of COVID-19 in Allegheny County lived in a nursing home or personal care home.
				To ensure consistency of programs, response, and study of clinical and public health outcomes, Turzai said the legislation would establish a coordinated, collaborative public-private-partnership approach of regional health system collaboratives. These health collaboratives would administer/manage personnel, protocols, testing and expenditures to protect the seniors in these facilities.
				Speaker Turzai has worked with UPMC experts to develop a plan to protect those most vulnerable to COVID-19. In fact, UPMC experts prepared, at the Turzai&rsquo;s request, a prototype for southwest Pennsylvania and developed a construct for the entire state, much of which is embodied in his legislation.
				Readshaw said the theme of control and protect the state&rsquo;s nursing home facilities, personal care homes and assisted living centers must be encouraged by everyone.
				&ldquo;Seniors need the assurance that they are in a healthy and safe environment,&rdquo; Readshaw said.
				The legislation will also provide an appropriation of $500 million from Pennsylvania&rsquo;s allotment of $3.9 billion in COVID-19 money from the federal government.
				An important component of the legislation is the Speaker&rsquo;s decision to use the Commonwealth Financing Authority (CFA) to distribute the funds to these academic health systems. The money would be appropriated to the CFA for distribution to the health collaboratives. The CFA would divide the state into regions delineating all of the facilities within the parameters of a region.
				After receiving proposals, the CFA would contract with health collaborative administrators (which must be academic health systems) to operate, manage and administer the program in each region to protect residents in these facilities from COVID-19.

Turzai pushes for HB-2510 to safeguard seniors in nursing homes