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Ohio Nursing Home Camera Law Passes Unanimously

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Gov. Mike DeWine will soon decide whether to sign a bill that passed unanimously in the Ohio House and Senate – a rare circumstance. It’s a measure to allow families of nursing home residents to put cameras in their rooms, an idea that gained support when those facilities were shut down during the pandemic. 

Steve Piskor put a hidden camera in his mother Esther’s Cleveland nursing home room ten years ago, when she was in her late 70s and living with dementia. And he said he saw aides scream at her, spray liquid into her face, fling her body around and neglect her.

“The only way that I caught the abuse was with the hidden camera. I mean, there was no other way. I would go to the nursing home every day, and the aides were as nice as can be. I mean, I’d walk in and the aides were, ‘Oh, hello Mr. Piskor, how are you?’ and you know, they’d be, ‘oh, your mother is doing fine today and everything’s fine.”

Two aides went to prison for their treatment of Esther Piskor, who died in 2018. Esther’s Law would set up standards for families who want to buy and install cameras in their loved one’s room. Aides say cameras could help them show they’re often overworked in short-staffed facilities.

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