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AL SB2
Bill
Status
3/8/2023
Primary Sponsor
Garlan Gudger
Click for details
AI Summary
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Health care facilities must establish visitation policies within 30 days of enactment that include infection control protocols, screening procedures, visit length limits, and staff accountability measures.
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Patients have the right to visit with any individual of their choosing during facility visiting hours and may designate an essential caregiver who receives at least two hours of daily visitation.
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Facilities cannot require proof of vaccination from visitors, cannot prohibit consensual physical contact, and cannot adopt safety policies more stringent than those applied to staff members.
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Visitation must be allowed in end-of-life situations, childbirth, pediatric care, and when patients are experiencing adjustment issues, grief, emotional distress, or difficulty eating or speaking.
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Facilities must submit visitation policies to the Alabama Department of Public Health for licensure and renewal, post policies on their websites within 24 hours, and the department must create a complaint mechanism; emergency rules cannot suspend these requirements.
Legislative Description
Relating to health care facilities; to add Section 22-21-437 to the Code of Alabama 1975; to require health care facilities to adopt certain visitation policies; to provide that patients have a right to certain visitation; to allow patients to designate an essential caregiver and to guarantee that caregiver certain visitation rights; to prohibit a health care facility from adopting a visitation policy that is more stringent than certain employee policies; to prohibit a health care facility from requiring visitors to show proof of vaccination or from prohibiting consensual physical contact between visitors and patients; to provide for the circumstances in which patients may not be denied visitors; to require health care facilities to provide visitation policies to the Department of Public Health; to require the Department of Public Health to develop a mechanism for complaints; to prohibit any suspension or modification by emergency rule or order; and to repeal Sections 22-21-430 through 22-21-436, Code of Alabama 1975, relating to hospital visitation during a public health emergency.
Health care facilities, patient right to visitors, provided; adoption of certain visitation standards, required; submission of v
Last Action
Read Second Time in House of Origin
3/9/2023