SACRAMENTO, Calif. — When Johanna Trenerry found a nursing home for her husband after his stroke, she expected his stay would be temporary.
He never came home.
Arthur Trenerry died at Windsor Redding Care Center in Northern California in October 2020. The 82-year-old great-grandfather is among more than 9,900 California nursing home residents who have died of covid-19.
The nursing home where Trenerry died is licensed by the state, but not under its current owner, Shlomo Rechnitz. The state denied Rechnitz a license, citing at least one death and multiple cases of “serious harm” at other nursing homes he owns or operates. To get around that, Rechnitz formed a business partnership with one of the home’s former owners, who continues to hold the facility’s license.
Some California lawmakers want to put an end to those types of business arrangements and ban people or entities from buying or operating nursing homes unless they have a license — which is the situation in most states. They’re also proposing an overhaul of the licensing process to reject applicants with poor performance and those without adequate experience or financial resources.
The ambitious effort, which the industry considers an overreach, could make California’s oversight the gold standard and a model for other states trying to improve nursing home care. Nationwide, more than 152,000 residents of nursing homes have died of covid during the pandemic, according to federal data.
“The public health emergency that we’ve experienced could be something that becomes a catalyst for making real change,” said Dr. Debra Saliba, a UCLA professor of medicine who served on a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine …