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���������� Note: ���������� is disappointed that this promising legislation—that would promote the independence and choice of persons with disabilities in NY—stalled again this year. As the article indicates, it’s unclear exactly why the bill didn’t pass, but we are confident that advocates will be working throughout the year for another advocacy push in the 2016 session.

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The ‘Vague’ Death of a Home Health Aide Bill

Capital New York; Josefa Velasquz, 7/1/2015

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Last year, Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo and the Republican-led Senate backed legislation to establish an “advanced aide” position for home health aides to make it easier for people to live in their homes rather than institutions. This year, the Democrat-led Assembly was on board, but not the Senate.

So what happened?

According to advocates pushing for the legislation, which would allow home health aides to perform certain advanced tasks, such as administering medication under a nurse’s supervision, the bill was held up by Senator Ken LaValle, a Long Island Republican who heads the chamber’s higher education committee. Because the measure deals with scope of practice, it was rerouted to LaValle’s committee.

In a brief interview with Capital earlier this month when the Legislature was still in session, LaValle said he had some concerns about patient safety.

“What about the patients? How are they treated?” LaValle asked. “So we have people now in certain areas providing nursing care. Now we’re going to have people who are lesser trained providing this care. Can we get enough people to now fulfill those responsibilities? In many places, people do not have the same skills … not only professional skills, but in terms of communicating with patients. Where you have very fragile patients, they need to be communicated and dealt with in a very sensitive way.”

LaValle said the legislation was something that needed to be carefully vetted.

The bill����in May despite the chamber’s reluctance last year and was co-sponsored in the Senate��—Richard Funke, Robert Ortt and Joseph Robach.

Efforts to get the bill passed came to a head earlier this month when a����after disability rights protesters, many in motorized wheelchairs, attempted to storm the private office of Majority Leader John Flanagan.

Last year, when Assemblywoman Deborah Glick, a Manhattan Democrat who heads the chamber’s higher education committee, was said to be leading the opposition to the bill, advocates for the disabled attempted to storm the chamber,��.

“Obviously I can’t speak to why they’re holding it,” Glick told Capital earlier this month, referring to the Senate. “We hold things because we have some concerns about some language, so I would just assume that there are some issues that they have concerns about.”

Adam Prizio, manager of government affairs at the Center for Disability Rights, said his group heavily lobbied the Assembly last year “assuming that we had the Senate.”

“That advocacy seems to have been effective because the Assembly included a proposal to include advanced home health aides in the budget and then when it didn’t pass in the budget, passed as a straight up free standing piece of legislation,” Prizio said.

The group, he said, has no clear indication as to why the bill stalled this year.

“I’ve heard a number of different things. I’m not confident that I know,” Prizio said, adding that his group was told by LaValle’s office that guidance a workgroup produced on the legislation was “vague.”

“We were also told that the way the bill was written was not the way that one amends the scope of practice in ����������,” he said.

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