Chuck Grassley: “Today I join Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota in introducing legislation aimed at reversing the lack of qualified…”

“Today I join Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota in introducing legislation aimed at reversing the lack of qualified nurse aides in rural America by encouraging local training programs to continue their work. Our goal is to improve the level of care in nursing homes. Increasing the availability of qualified staff in rural nursing homes will help older Americans live better lives. Many rural nursing homes rely on their own training programs to certify nurse aides. Current Federal law allows these training programs to be terminated due to problems unrelated to the quality of the training program. In rural areas, terminating a nurse aide training program can result in a lack of qualified staff at a rural facility. Therefore, terminating a nurse training program can actually make conditions worse, not better. This bill ensures that nurse aide training programs will be judged on their own merits, not on outside factors. This is commonsense legislation. Judging people on their actions and programs on their results is the American way. Judging training programs on outside factors doesn't penalize the substandard nursing homes, it penalizes older Americans.”