Gov. Maura Healey introduces new safety reforms after deadly Gabriel House fire
FALL RIVER, Mass. (WJAR) — Six months after the tragic fire at the Gabriel House assisted living facility in Fall River, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healy is putting out new assisted living safety reforms.
The new requirements, which do not have to be passed by state legislature, come after the Massachusetts Assisted Living Residences Commission released their final report, after months of preparing recommendations based on feedback from experts in the field and the general public.
"There will be a minimum threshold that we expect everyone to meet," Robin Lipson, chair of the committee and Secretary for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Aging and Independence, told NBC10 in an interview.
"Probably 80 or 85% of them we have the authority to implement in the near term. And then there are a handful of issues that should go back to the legislature because they're matters of law," she added.
The new guidelines include enhanced and more frequent fire safety inspections, a new public database, standardized disclosures on services, costs, and staffing. There are also new, clear assessment practices and new requirements for nursing and staffing leadership.
"We will improve the way we manage our processes to actually make sure that these requirements are working in real time in the communities," Lipson said when asked about enforcement.
Ted Doyle, Senior Vice President of LCB Senior Living who sits on the legislative committee, said he applauds the Governor's office for taking these steps.
"We sincerely want our communities, obviously, to be as safe as they can be and any help we can get, any support we can get from the governor and others at the State House level is completely welcome and necessary," he said in an interview with NBC10.
He said that assisted living facilities already have the foundation to meet many of these requirements, and that "this is gonna require us to maybe step up our game in a couple of other areas."
He said that facilities are now approaching safety with a new "sense of vigilance," because the tragedy "has really thrown a light on something that we all need to be very, very aware of."
"I think it's fair to say it's a good start and there's a lot more to do," Steven Sabra, attorney for the Gabriel House fire victims, told NBC10. "It's also gonna take some legislative changes in the report, which is over a hundred pages long."
A concern Sabra did not think was adequately addressed was staffing. "It wasn't clear to me, in the hundred page report, that it was very specific staffing."
