Posted: Monday, July 26, 2004 12:00 am
CHEYENNE (AP) - Wyoming has the fourth-highest percentage of nursing homes with fire safety deficiencies in the nation, according to a government report.
The report by the Government Accountability Office concludes that 94.9 percent of the state's 39 nursing homes had fire safety deficiencies, based on information as of December 2003.
Nationally, 58.9 percent of 16,334 surveyed nursing homes had fire safety deficiencies.
But officials from the state Office of Health Facilities, part of the Wyoming Department of Health, say most of the deficiencies in Wyoming are operational rather than structural problems.
They usually include missed fire drills or equipment tests that are mild in terms of severity and the number of people they affect, posing only the potential for harm.
The state statistic also doesn't surprise them.
"My expectation would be that a perfect facility would be a rarity because of the nature of the process of keeping a building fully functional and a keeping a staff fully trained," said Jean McLean, state survey agent for the Office of Health Facilities. "I think people are very safe in our nursing homes."
In fact, McLean points out that Wyoming has never had a resident die in a nursing home fire.
This month's report, performed by the investigative arm of Congress, was done mainly in response to two nursing home fires last year in Hartford, Conn., and Nashville, Tenn., that killed 31 residents.
Federal fire safety standards, which are enforced by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, didn't require either of the homes to have automatic sprinklers, even though they have proven effective in cutting the number of multiple deaths from fires.
As a result, the GAO focused on why all nursing homes aren't required to have sprinklers and examined the adequacy of federal fire safety standards and the effectiveness of state and federal oversight.
Its recommendations include improving oversight and strengthening fire safety standards.
In Wyoming currently only one nursing home, Worland Healthcare and Rehabilitation, does not have a sprinkler system. The facility does comply with other requirements for existing buildings without sprinklers but is considering installing a system, said Milt Werner, an engineering consultant for the Office of Health Facilities.
Werner explained that surveyors from his office check the state's nursing homes annually on how they're meeting Life Safety Code requirements. Nursing homes need to pass the surveys to get Medicare and Medicaid certification.
Surveyors inspect items such as smoke barriers, emergency lighting and the maintenance of fire extinguishers.
Facilities with deficiencies must find a way to be in compliance within 70 days.
Federal officials from Denver also annually survey five facilities here to make sure the state office is doing its job.