Lawmakers hear from families pleading to see loved ones during pandemic

A hearing on Feb. 1, featuring emotional testimony from families who’ve been barred from seeing loved ones in hospitals and nursing homes during the pandemic, gave second wind to a bill by Senator Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling.

Senate Bill 53 was assigned to the Senate’s State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, usually a bad sign that Democratic leaders had put out the order to kill the bill.

But the committee’s chair, Sen. Julie Gonzales, D-Denver, knows first-hand what it’s like to lose a loved one to COVID; at least three members of her family died from the virus just over a year ago and more have perished since then.

Emotions ran high during the hearing, which drew families who begged the committee to allow them just one visitor when a loved one is hospitalized or in a nursing home.

Sonnenberg’s bill included language to avoid some of the problems that two previous versions in the 20202 and 2021 sessions ran into, primarily over guidance from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, that health care facilities have relied upon when making visitation policies.

The bill states that a patient admitted to a hospital for inpatient care, or a resident of a nursing care assisted living facility, can have at least one visitor of their choosing. Those facilities must have written policies regarding visitation rights of patients, which must also state “any clinically necessary or reasonable restriction or limitation that the facility may need to place on visitation, and way.

It also prohibits health care facilities from blocking visitation if the sole reason is to reduce the risk of spreading a pandemic disease, but the facility can also impose restrictions to reduce that risk.

Six members of the Richard Gillham family of Peetz testified about what happened to Richard, who died Jan. 30, 2021, from complications due to COVID. As he left the family’s Rim Ranch on the way to the Sterling hospital, he looked at his pasture and told his wife, Nita, “I don’t think I will ever see this again.” 

Days later, the illness worsened, and Richard was moved to a hospital in Greeley to be intubated. He never saw his wife in person again. 

His son, Daniel, saw his family just before Richard died, telling the committee his dad was malnourished and emaciated.

The bill drew only one opponent: the Colorado Hospital Association. Josh Ewing, representing the association, said visitation is not an absolute right, and that health care facilities are doing everything they can to protect patients, families and medical staff from the pandemic. But outbreaks of COVID-19 have forced facilities to adopt limitations on visitor policies, he explained.

Nursing homes and assisted living facilities have been hit particularly hard by COVID-19. More than 2,000 outbreaks in nursing homes and assisted living facilities have been reported to the state Department of Public Health and Environment. That resulted in more than 20,000 cases for residents and more than 22,500 cases among staff and 2,870 deaths, the CDPHE reported, as of Feb. 2, just shy of two years into the pandemic.

At two facilities in Phillips County, there have been 28 total cases; 19 among residents and nine among staff.

At the end of the three-hour hearing, Sonnenberg pleaded with Gonzales to allow him time to make changes to the bill to satisfy Democrats. That included a plea to Gonzales to join him as a sponsor of the bill. Gonzales said she was not ready to take action on the bill at hearing’s conclusion and postponed it to another date that has not yet been set.

Action on a bill to change the makeup of the State Fair Board of Authority, to ensure better representation from the Eastern Plains, was also delayed by the same committee on Feb. 1, but for different reasons.

Senate Bill 42, sponsored by Sen. Don Coram, R-Montrose, would require that members of the state fair board be appointed to represent agricultural districts rather than congressional districts, which is current law. 

Coram told the State Affairs committee his bill would ensure geographic diversity, which has been lacking at times on the State Fair Board. Most recently, in 2019, Governor Jared Polis delayed in appointing a member from the Eastern Plains, leaving the top 10 ag-producing counties without any representation on the board that governs the State’s largest agricultural showplace.

However, another bill working its way through the process conflicts with Coram’s measure and the committee decided to wait for that measure to be amended to resolve the conflict.

Senate Bill 13, sponsored by Majority Leader Sen. Steve Fenberg, D-Boulder, and Minority Leader Sen. Chris Holbert, R-Douglas County, wraps up the last changes that resulted from congressional redistricting. The bill deals with changes to two elected boards which have new maps and will add a member representing the new 8th Congressional District in November. That’s the University of Colorado Board of Regents and the Colorado State Board of Education. A total of 16 boards and commissions, with 10 whose membership is appointed by the governor, will be impacted by the bill. 

The Senate, at Fenberg’s request on Feb. 3, added language to Senate Bill 13 that strikes the State Fair Board from his bill if Coram’s bill is successful. 

This week, the Senate Education Committee will look at Sonnenberg’s bill that would open the door to the University of Northern Colorado to launch its own osteopathic medical school. Senate Bill 56 is co-sponsored by Senate President Leroy Garcia, D-Pueblo, who announced on Feb. 3 that he will resign his seat on Feb. 23 to take a position with the Department of Defense at the Pentagon.

The Sonnenberg/Garcia bill would grant UNC permission to open a medical school, intending to help relieve a shortage of medical doctors, particularly in northern Colorado. The bill does not appear to have any opposition, and is backed by Banner Health, the Colorado Hospital Association and the Colorado Community Health Network, which operates Salud Family Health clinics in northeastern Colorado.

A bill to deal with the problem of illegal ponds was introduced in the state Senate in the past week.

Illegal ponds are those that are dug without a permit from the state engineer, who has the authority to require them to be drained. But lawmakers came up with a novel solution: designate them as fire suppression ponds, which would halt any drainage orders from the state engineer.

Under Senate Bill 114, the county commission would apply to the State engineer for a pond to be designated as a fire suppression pond. Once that application is made, it halts the process for the State engineer to order the pond drained. 

However, that designation does not make the pond legal; the bill states that the water is not considered a water right, it cannot be adjudicated as a water right and will not be granted priority for determining a water right.

The bill does not yet have a hearing date. It is sponsored by Sens. Dennis Hisey, R-Colorado Springs, and Tammy Story, D-Evergreen.

Finally, Sens. Faith Winter, D-Westminster, and Cleave Simpson, R-Alamosa, are going to take another shot at helping farmers and ranchers deprived of conservation easement tax credits reclaim those credits. Senate Bill 119 is similar to the measure that died in the 2021 session. 

Winter was a sponsor of the 2021 bill that cleared the Senate but died in the House Appropriations Committee on June 15.