[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 207 (Wednesday, December 1, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H6720-H6721]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  WE NEED THE ESSENTIAL CAREGIVERS ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
New York (Ms. Tenney) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. TENNEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today as the colead of H.R. 3733, the 
Essential Caregivers Act, to tell the stories of Americans across the 
country who are desperately calling on Congress to immediately act on 
this bill.
  I also thank Representative Larson, who is my colead, for helping me 
sponsor this bill. I am grateful to him for his leadership and his 
compassion.
  I have shared many heartbreaking and tragic stories before in this 
Chamber, and I will continue to do so until there is action on my 
bipartisan Essential Caregivers Act. Just as so many families who were 
forced to helplessly watch as their loved ones rapidly declined 
physically and mentally in long-term care facilities, I am not going to 
give up this fight. I am just getting started.
  First and foremost, the Essential Caregivers Act is a critically 
important bill that would ensure the policies that were put in place 
during the COVID-19 pandemic never happen again. In my home State of 
New York, and many States across the Nation, families were literally 
shut out from their loved ones living in long-term care facilities, 
neglecting the basic needs of their loved ones at these facilities. 
These decisions to isolate long-term care facility residents were fatal 
and will have long-lasting impacts.

  Today, I am here to share stories that go beyond my home State of New 
York. I will begin by sharing a story from Alaska. This is an excerpt 
from the book entitled ``Protecting Them to Death.'' This is a book 
that was compiled and written by my great constituent, Karla Abraham-
Conley, who lost her mother in a long-term care facility.
  This is an excerpt from the book compiled using COVID-19 isolation 
stories. The first one is a story from Denise Brown:

       ``Ohana'' means ``family'' in Hawaiian and that no one is 
     left behind. This word means a lot to us. My mother's skilled 
     nursing facility was an hour away from her home and ours, so 
     they became her pseudo ohana.
       She was moved there by the State of Alaska when an employee 
     brought COVID-19 into her extended care facility. She was 
     able to see us through a window once or twice a week because 
     she was on the ground floor at that time. We talked every day 
     on the phone, except for those days when she was too weak to 
     answer my call. Last year on her birthday, when she was in 
     the final skilled nursing facility that the State had moved 
     her to, we cooked her dinner outside her window, we sent it 
     in to her via a CNA. My boys built her rock towers, and we 
     sang ``Happy Birthday'' through the window. But the moment 
     they moved my mother to the second floor, I think she gave up 
     hope of getting stronger, of seeing the faces she loved 
     through the window. It was her one connection to us that 
     still seemed real and wasn't through a virtual visit. We lost 
     her on January 12, 2021.

  Mr. Speaker, Ms. Brown could still be here with us today if she had 
had access to an essential caregiver.
  The next two stories come to us from Arizona. The first story is from 
Linda Thompson, also featured in the book ``Protecting Them to Death'':

       My husband is in a memory care facility. He no longer 
     speaks as a direct result of the isolation during the 
     pandemic. He uses a walker. Because he was confined to his 
     room, he was unable to exercise his legs. All his physical 
     abilities have declined significantly. Change of any kind 
     takes a toll on dementia residents. Knowing that he spent 17 
     days in a sterile room in the COVID-19 ward of his facility 
     is heartbreaking. He had very few symptoms but lost 20 
     pounds. I am still praying this never happens again.


[[Page H6721]]


  If he had access to his loved ones, Mrs. Thompson's husband might 
still be speaking today. But the moment he was shut off from his 
essential caregivers, his health took a devastating toll.
  Also from Arizona, here is the story from Anne Martinez, who lost her 
mother in the pandemic, also from the book ``Protecting Them to 
Death'':

       Every time I visited my mother, she looked like a zoo 
     animal behind the patio door. She would mouth that she was 
     hungry or motion for what I had brought to drink. The 
     blueberries I left got moldy, the almond milk grew stale, and 
     the canned organic soups gathered dust. Nobody was giving 
     them to her. My dad gestured at the closed patio window how 
     much he missed her, and she avoided eye contact so as not to 
     cry. Some days I was allowed to bring home-cooked meals and 
     other days I was not allowed to feed her.
       On the day she was transferred to a hospice care facility, 
     I was with her to say goodbye and could see the particles in 
     her dentures that had not been cleaned in weeks and blackened 
     food underneath her fingernails from trying to eat with her 
     bare hands.
       I was actually relieved when they told me she had 
     contracted COVID shortly after being vaccinated. Nobody 
     deserves to spend their last years, months, weeks, or even 
     days, alone in a facility without their loved ones at their 
     side.

  Anne's story is just one of thousands that are occurring across this 
Nation.
  I will continue sharing these stories and urging immediate passage of 
the bipartisan Essential Caregivers Act. Denise, Linda, Anne, and their 
families, friends, and loved ones are depending on it.

                          ____________________