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New York City SNF evacuation plans a 'disaster'

LTC Liability Monitor, November 3, 2005

The gulf coast hurricane disasters prompted SNFs nationwide to take a hard look at the effectiveness of their evacuation plans-but more than half of New York City's nursing homes don't even have a disaster strategy in place, the New York Daily News reported. Although the state Health Department requires every building to have an evacuation plan, many SNFs have no additional plans for moving injured, elderly, or incapacitated residents to safety elsewhere.

"They're going to be able to get people to the sidewalks, but they're not going to be able to get them any farther," said Westchester Assemblyman Richard Brodsky to the Daily News. As of the report, only 26% of the city's SNFs had full-fledged disaster plans, and only 4% said they were prepared to call in extra staff during an emergency.

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