Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 10, 1995 TAG: 9502100097
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
The Senate Education and Health Committee approved the bill after matching language in Shuler's bill with a version approved in the Senate Monday.
The amended Warm Hearth bill next will go before the full Senate.
The nursing home industry was pushing for an amendment that would have limited Warm Hearth Village to only 20 new beds, but Shuler stopped the effort.
"Reducing it to 20 beds would simply have gutted the whole concept," Shuler said.
The amended bill adds two more exceptions to Virginia's 7-year-old moratorium on the construction of new nursing homes.
Those exceptions, for facilities in Ashland and Colonial Beach, are in addition to another exception for a Henrico County home that a House member added last month.
Shuler said he didn't anticipate any major problems when the amended House bill comes to the Senate floor for a vote. He noted the Senate version, sponsored by Malfourd "Bo" Trumbo, R-Fincastle, passed the Senate by a unanimous vote Monday.
Warm Hearth Village, a nonprofit retirement community of 300 residents, is seeking permission to build the nursing home to meet what its officials say is a need for additional beds in the New River Valley.
The nursing center would be one of three buildings planned for a health and wellness campus at the village. Of the 60 beds in the center, 36 would be dedicated to the treatment of patients with Alzheimer's disease. Shuler said he was able to defeat another amendment that would have prohibited the new center from accepting Medicaid patients. As it stands, the new facility will reserve 24 beds for Medicaid recipients.
by CNB