October 1, 2024
SENATORS ANWAR, MARX THANKFUL HOME CARE WORKERS BETTER PROTECTED AS NEW LAW TAKES EFFECT TODAY
As October 1 brings new laws into effect throughout Connecticut, State Senators Saud Anwar (D-South Windsor) and Martha Marx (D-New London), the Senate Chairs of the Public Health Committee, were thankful that home health care workers would have better protections due to a flagship law passed earlier this year.
Senate Bill 1 will provide significant improvements for home health workers, including better information about patients who may be safety risks, increased information before calls, potential chaperones if needed, better safety training and technology for care workers to report issues or danger. It was a lead effort from Senate Democrats in the 2024 legislative session early this year; it was inspired after the tragic deaths of multiple home care workers on the job in late 2023 and early 2024.
“For years, we’ve known that health care workers need better safety on the job. They’re working to help us recover and heal from injury, all the while facing possible injury themselves. That has to stop,” said Sen. Anwar, Senate Chair of the Public Health Committee. “Today’s new law provides home care workers, who enter patients’ homes to help them, with resources and transparency that will improve their safety. These workers provide a personal and important service for our state and should be treated with respect. Today, we provide them with more tools to help them help us.”
“As a home care nurse, I know firsthand the challenges that nurses face every day just trying to do their jobs. These changes have been long overdue and I am pleased we worked to make them a reality,” said Sen. Marx. “In worst-case scenarios, home care nurses can face verbal and physical abuse from patients or their families or even encounter in-home risks. They deserve to know who they’re treating and what resources they can use if they end up in trouble. Starting today, they’ll have better access to information and aid on the job. That’s a huge step forward for their safety and effectiveness on the job.”
Among the new parts of Senate Bill 1, “An Act Concerning The Health and Safety of Connecticut Residents,” going into effect October 1 include home agencies being required to collect information about prospective clients’ risks of doing harm to home care workers, as well as the safety of their homes, and provide that information to care workers; require home health agencies to provide health and safety training and annual staff training; and require reporting of abuse against staff members.
The bill was inspired after the tragic deaths of Joyce Grayson, a home care nurse who was killed on the job in Willimantic in October 2023 by a patient residing in a halfway home, and Otoliegle Morulane, a live-in home care nurse who died in a house fire with his patient in East Lyme in January 2024. |
