Bill Calls For Background Checks

(Kentucky) - In Kentucky, nursing homes and assisted-living homes have to conduct criminal background checks only on employees such as nurses, who provide direct care to residents. Last week, Senator Tom Buford, R-Nicholasville, prefiled legislation for the 2012 General Assembly that would require criminal background checks for all long-term care employees. The legislation would prohibit employment by a long-term care center, a nursing facility, or an assisted-living community of anyone convicted of a felony offense related to theft, abuse or sale of illegal drugs, abuse, neglect, or exploitation of an adult or a sexual crime. Buford says he filed the legislation due to a number of cases in Kentucky in which nursing home employees have taken not only financial advantage of residents but also physical, sexual and emotional advantage of them.