By MATT SEDENSKY Associated Press Tens of thousands of the country’s most vulnerable people are living in nursing homes without adequate sprinklers or that are missing them altogether, according to government data. Despite a history of deadly nursing home fires and a five-year lead-up to an August 2013 deadline to install sprinklers, 385 facilities in 39 states fail to meet requirements set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency whose duties include regulating nursing homes. Together, those facilities are licensed to house more than 52,000 people, according to data from the agency known as CMS. Forty-four of the homes have no sprinklers at all. “That is intolerable in this day and age,” said Brian Lee, executive director of Families for Better Care, which advocates for nursing home residents. “It’s not like they don’t have money to put these systems in. They have the money. They just choose not to do so.” CMS, which had warned last year it would not grant extensions to the sprinkler rules, said 97 percent of facilities meet requirements, which are basic fire-safety tools in many structures, but especially important in nursing homes where residents may be unable to quickly evacuate. “CMS […]
↧