Hospital Visitors

Good News on Hospital Visitor Policies!

Disabled people have been facing discriminatory “no visitor” policies in hospitals across the country. These policies are in place to keep people safe during the COVID-19 pandemic, but they have prevented people from receiving critical support and assistance from family members, friends, support workers, or others. Accommodations to these policies are required by law, but states and hospitals across the country have been refusing to make such accommodations and abide by the law.  

The first federal complaint (PDF) challenging these policies was filed in Connecticut by Independence Northwest: Center for Independent Living of Northwest CT, Disability Rights Connecticut, CommunicationFIRST, the Arc of Connecticut, Center for Public Representation, and the Arc of the US. Last week, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a resolution. 

The resolution is a huge win, and while it is specific to Connecticut’s policies, its implications are nationwide! The resolution makes clear that no-visitor policies are a violation of federal law, and that the law requires states to modify policies and practices to ensure people can access the supports they need while hospitalized. As part of the resolution, Connecticut issued an executive order (PDF) which, among other things, established a policy requiring hospitals to permit entrance of a designated support person into hospitals and permitting family members or others to serve as a designated support person.  

This resolution sends an important message to other states that still have no-visitor policies in place that such policies are illegal and must be modified. And importantly, it affirms that disabled people are still entitled to reasonable accommodations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Resources

• Green Mountain Self Advocates and the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) have produced a video and guide (PDF) called “Know Your Rights: People with Disabilities Can Have a Supporter in the Hospital during COVID-19”.
• The Center for Public Representation has a web page dedicated to this issue, including advocacy tools, resources, and a list of which states currently provide exceptions to “no visitor” policies for disabled people. 

ADA does not exempt anyone from face mask requirements

June 30, 2020
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)

Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Eric Dreiband reiterated today that cards and other documents bearing the Department of Justice seal and claiming that individuals are exempt from face mask requirements are fraudulent.

Inaccurate flyers or other postings have been circulating on the web and via social media channels regarding the use of face masks and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of these notices included use of the Department of Justice seal and ADA phone number.

As the Department has stated in a previous alert, the Department did not issue and does not endorse them in any way. The public should not rely on the information contained in these postings.

The ADA does not provide a blanket exemption to people with disabilities from complying with legitimate safety requirements necessary for safe operations.

The public can visit ADA.gov or call the ADA Information Line at 800-514-0301 (voice) and 800-514-0383 (TTY) for more information.

USDOL Announces Online Tool to Help Workers

U.S. Department Of Labor Announces Online Tool to Help Workers Determine Eligibility for Paid Sick Leave Due to Coronavirus

June 25, 2020
Source: U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)

The U.S. Department of Labor today launched an interactive online tool to help workers determine if they qualify for paid sick leave or extended family and medical leave to cover time away from work for reasons related to the coronavirus.

The tool guides workers through a series of questions to help them determine if the paid leave provisions of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) apply to their employer. If the provisions do apply, the tool helps them learn whether they qualify for either paid sick leave or extended family and medical leave under that law.

The FFCRA requires certain employers to provide employees with up to two weeks of paid sick leave if they are unable to work or telework due to a federal, state or local quarantine or stay-at-home order. Employees are also eligible if a healthcare provider has advised them to self-quarantine for reasons related to the coronavirus or are seeking diagnosis for coronavirus symptoms. Paid sick leave may also be available to workers caring for someone subject to a quarantine order or self-quarantining based on a healthcare provider’s advice, or caring for a child whose school, place of care or child care provider is closed or unavailable due to the coronavirus. Up to 10 additional weeks of expanded family and medical leave is available for workers forced to miss work to care for their children because the pandemic has closed or made unavailable their school, place of care or child care provider.

“This new tool makes it simple for workers to find out if they may be eligible for paid sick leave or extended family and medical leave under the critical protections of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act,” said Wage and Hour Division [WHD] Administrator Cheryl Stanton. “As America reopens, this leave provides a crucial lifeline for millions of workers who need time off to care for themselves or their families. We want to ensure that everyone who is eligible knows about these protections and how to use them.”

The FFCRA helps the U.S. combat the workplace effects of the coronavirus by giving tax credits to American businesses with fewer than 500 employees to reimburse them for the cost of providing paid sick leave and expanded family and medical leave as required by the law. Please visit WHD’s “Quick Benefits Tips” for information about how much leave workers may qualify to use and the wages employers must pay. The law enables employers to provide their workers with paid leave, while at the same time ensuring that workers are not forced to choose between their paychecks and the public health measures needed to combat the virus.

WHD continues to provide updated information on its website and through extensive outreach efforts to ensure that workers and employers have the information they need about the benefits and protections of this new law. The agency also provides additional information on common issues employers and employees face when responding to the coronavirus and its effects on wages and hours worked under the Fair Labor Standards Act and on job-protected leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act at https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/pandemic.

For more information about the laws enforced by the WHD, call 866-4US-WAGE, or visit www.dol.gov/agencies/whd.

WHD developed the plain-language tool in partnership with the Office of Compliance Initiatives (OCI). OCI is a cross-agency effort that complements the Department’s enforcement activities by strengthening and innovating compliance assistance outreach to provide workers and employers with access to information about their rights and responsibilities. Through Worker.gov and Employer.gov, OCI provides information about worker rights and employer responsibilities.

The mission of the Department of Labor is to foster, promote and develop the welfare of the wage earners, job seekers and retirees of the United States; improve working conditions; advance opportunities for profitable employment; and assure work-related benefits and rights.

Link: Go to website for News Source
https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20200623

Disability Rights in State Emergencies

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 26, 2020

Contact: HHS Press Office
202-690-6343
media@hhs.gov

OCR Resolves Complaint with Tennessee After it Revises its Triage Plans to Protect Against Disability Discrimination

Today, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is announcing that it has reached an early case resolution with the state of Tennessee after it updated its crisis standards of care (“CSC”) plan to ensure that the criteria does not discriminate against persons based on disability or age.  This is OCR’s fourth resolution with a state regarding disability discrimination concerns during COVID-19.

OCR enforces a number of federal antidiscrimination laws, including Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 1557 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and the Age Discrimination Act of 1975.

OCR received a complaint from Disability Rights Tennessee and other advocacy organizations alleging that Tennessee’s CSC plan, titled “Guidance for the Ethical Allocation of Scarce Resources during a Community-Wide Public Health Emergency as Declared by the Governor of Tennessee” discriminates based on disability. Among other things, complainants alleged that Tennessee’s CSC would unlawfully disqualify individuals with advanced neuromuscular disease, metastatic cancer, traumatic brain injury, dementia, and other disabilities from use of a ventilator in times of scarcity.

After OCR provided technical assistance to Tennessee, the state has updated its CSC plan and:

• Clarified that resource-intensity and duration of need on the basis of age or disability should not be used as criteria for the allocation or re-allocation of scarce medical resources. This protects patients who require additional treatment resources due to their age or disability from automatically being given a lower priority to receive life-saving care;
• Removed language permitting the use of a patient’s long-term life expectancy as a factor in the allocation and re-allocation of scarce medical resources, instead indicating that providers should consider only risk of imminent mortality;
• Added language stating that reasonable modifications to the use of the state’s primary instrument for assessing likelihood of short-term survival should be made when necessary for accurate use with patients with underlying disabilities. Such reasonable modifications ensure that people with disabilities are evaluated based on their actual mortality risk, not disability-related characteristics unrelated to their likelihood of survival;
• Removed categorical exclusion criteria that prohibited people with disabilities from receiving care on the basis of their diagnosis, and required individualized assessments of patients based on the best available objective medical evidence; and
• Incorporated language stating that hospitals should not re-allocate personal ventilators brought by a patient to an acute care facility to continue pre-existing personal use with respect to a disability. Under this language, long term ventilator users will be protected from having a ventilator they take with them into a hospital setting taken from them to be given to someone else.

In light of these actions, OCR is closing the complaint as resolved to the satisfaction of all parties involved without any finding of liability.

Regarding the early case resolution, Roger Severino, OCR Director said, “We commend Tennessee for updating its policies to ensure that hospitals do not deny life-saving care during a crisis based on stereotypes about disabilities or other impermissible factors. Our civil rights laws reflect the principle that we are all created with equal dignity and worth.” Severino added.

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For more information about how OCR is protecting civil rights during COVID-19, please visit  https://www.hhs.gov/civil-rights/for-providers/civil-rights-covid19/index.html.

To learn more about non-discrimination on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, age, and disability; conscience and religious freedom; and health information privacy laws, and to file a complaint with OCR, please visit www.hhs.gov/ocr.

Follow OCR on Twitter at @HHSOCR .

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