We’re working to prevent tragedies

As caregivers dedicated to helping Florida’s frail elders, all of us at Florida Health Care Association grieve the loss of nine elderly residents of a single, non-member South Florida nursing home in the wake of Hurricane Irma.

Our members accept the enormous daily responsibility of caring for Florida’s frailest residents. Ever since Florida’s horrendous storm season of 2004, we have committed to ongoing intensive disaster response training — most recently, the week before Hurricanes Harvey and Irma struck.

That same spirit led us to actively support a legislative proposal in 2006 that would have provided and funded generators for Florida nursing centers. Even though that measure failed, the vast majority of our state’s nursing centers continue to modernize their emergency preparedness policies and procedures.

Those efforts, and the dedication of our association’s member nursing centers, is why the recent tragedy was an isolated incident.

This cannot be allowed to happen again. That is why we fully support Gov. Rick Scott’s intent to increase generator capacity to help further harden nursing care centers against disasters. Installing generators that can power a nursing center’s air conditioning is an extremely complex and lengthy process.

We look forward to working with the governor, legislature and regulators on how these meaningful goals can reasonably be achieved.

To that end, we are co-hosting a Nursing Center Emergency Preparedness Summit today. We have invited long-term care providers, utility companies, generator suppliers, emergency management personnel, regulators, government officials — including the governor — along with other emergency planning partners.

Gov. Scott has shown steadfast leadership through this historically dangerous hurricane. He has set a steady course to protect thousands of Florida’s most frail residents. We look forward to working with him to ensure the highest standards for those in our care.