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New Missouri Law Allows Families To Place Cameras Inside Nursing Homes

Missouri legislators recently passed a law that would prohibit nursing homes, like Royal Oak Nursing & Rehab in St. Louis, from evicting residents who want to install a camera in their rooms.
Eli Chen | St. Louis Public Radio
Missouri legislators recently passed a law that would prohibit nursing homes, like Royal Oak Nursing & Rehab in St. Louis, from evicting residents who want to install a camera in their rooms.

Guardians of nursing home residents in Missouri will soon be allowed to install cameras in facilities to monitor how workers provide care to their loved ones. 

The Missouri Legislature passed a law in mid-May to allow surveillance of residents’ rooms. Patient advocates say the measure could help families keep an eye on relatives they can’t visit during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Cameras would allow families to document abuse or workers not taking precautions against the coronavirus, said Marjorie Moore, executive director of VOYCE, a St. Louis advocacy group for long-term care residents.

“Throughout the pandemic, [residents] have to be the ones to speak up during this time. So if someone comes into their room without wearing a mask, they have to be able to speak up,” Moores said. “But you know, a lot of folks can’t. This allows us to say, 'Hey, this facility really needs some help.'” 

Many families have struggled during the pandemic to find out if their loved ones are being properly taken care of and if other residents have tested positive for the coronavirus. The bill’s House sponsor, Rep. Jim Murphy, R-St. Louis County, receives many calls from distressed family members.

“What I get now is, ‘What am I going to do? How do I see my loved one? And what are they doing in there? We don’t know what they’re doing in there,’” Murphy said. 

Patient advocates have tried for several years to convince state lawmakers to pass the bill. Previous versions of it have failed due to the nursing home industry’s concerns about patient and worker privacy. 

“They had concerns about what would happen if a nurse went into a room and dropped a bedpan, would she become a YouTube sensation?” Murphy said. 

To address privacy concerns, the bill was revised to make video recordings co-owned by the family and the nursing home. Both parties would have to agree to release any recordings, unless it captured any abuse or neglect that would be reported to state authorities. Facilities would be prohibited from evicting residents because they installed a camera inside their room. 

It would also require signs inside patients’ rooms that say the room is being monitored. Roommates or their guardians can request having the camera pointed away from them. 

Twelve states, including Illinois and Texas, allow nursing home residents and guardians to install cameras in their rooms.

Follow Eli on Twitter: @StoriesByEli

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Eli Chen is the science and environment reporter at St. Louis Public Radio. She comes to St. Louis after covering the eroding Delaware coast, bat-friendly wind turbine technology, mouse love songs and various science stories for Delaware Public Media/WDDE-FM. Before that, she corralled robots and citizen scientists for the World Science Festival in New York City and spent a brief stint booking guests for Science Friday’s live events in 2013. Eli grew up in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, where a mixture of teen angst, a love for Ray Bradbury novels and the growing awareness about climate change propelled her to become the science storyteller she is today. When not working, Eli enjoys a solid bike ride, collects classic disco, watches standup comedy and is often found cuddling other people’s dogs. She has a bachelor’s in environmental sustainability and creative writing at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and has a master’s degree in journalism, with a focus on science reporting, from the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism.