In Minnesota created triage effort to tackle backlog of elder care abuse cases. Here is how it’s progressed, Christopher Magan reports:
State leaders say they’ve tackled more than three-quarters of the backlog of maltreatment complaints from seniors and vulnerable adults at long-term care facilities.
Minnesota began 2018 with 3,147 reports of abuse and maltreatment that needed to be reviewed or investigated. An intense triage effort at the state Health Department’s Office of Health Facility Complaints, OHFC, has knocked that number down to 712 complaints that still need to be resolved. . . .
The progress is unlikely to appease lawmakers who are looking to overhaul the way Minnesota investigates allegations of abuse of seniors and vulnerable adults when the Legislature convenes Tuesday.
“This session, my focus will be on creating a more transparent, more accountable process for processing facility complaints, providing better access to data sharing for families, and working to change the culture of neglect and intimidation that has permeated the bureaucracy,” Sen. Karin Housley, R- St. Mary’s Point, said in a statement. Housley chairs the Senate long-term care policy committee.
Housley is also running for the United States Senate seat filled by Tina Smith after the resignation of Al Franken, and the Republican contender is tying Smith to mishaps in the Dayton administration. At the Hutchinson Leader, Jeremy Jones reports in Fifteen minutes with Karin Housley: Why she wants you to send her to the U.S. Senate:
How do you differ from prior representation?
“I think what’s different between me and who I am running against, Tina Smith, is ... she’s never been a stand-alone candidate. And she was part of the Dayton administration the last eight years. Everything that has happened in the Dayton administration, from MNSure, the debacle that turned out to be, more bureaucracy with our health care system, MNLARS. Well, MNSure was $95 million, and MNLARS $93 million. Complete debacles. And they want another $43 million to fix it. And then what happened with the Department of Health, and the oversight of the office of health facility complaints where reports were just thrown in the garbage, and Tina Smith and Gov. Dayton knew all about that. So, I don’t know what there is to be happy with that at all. So I’d say I’m a lot different from her there, being a stand-alone candidate and doing good things for my district.”
That paragraph may include truncated and run-on sentences worthy of Tim Walz or Donald Trump, but the meaning is clear. Will voters agree?
Photo: Karin Housley.
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