A Republican-sponsored measure to protect patient visitation rights during a pandemic is headed to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk after receiving unanimous approval in the state Senate Wednesday.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, countless families were unable to be by their loved ones’ sides during their final moments, said state Rep. Chris Bos, a Lake Zurich Republican, who sponsored the legislation in the House.
If signed into law, the bill would require health care facilities to allow patients to receive least one visitor, regardless of whether the governor has declared a public health-related disaster.
“This bill came out of those stories,” Bos said on the House floor earlier this week. “This is an opportunity for us as a body to take a look back. We all acted and reacted at the beginning of COVID-19 because we had to. … If we don’t look back to make those changes, shame on us.”
Hospitals and long-term care facilities including nursing homes would be able to set guidelines for visitors, such as requiring health screenings, mask-wearing and vaccination. If a health care facility determined a visitor posed a risk to patients or workers, they could be denied visitation, though the denial would have to be given in writing.
Prior to Wednesday’s unanimous vote in the Senate, the bill passed the House 105-3 Monday, with three lawmakers voting present.
Rep. Carol Ammons, an Urbana Democrat who opposed the measure, said the bill “usurps the governor’s authority.”
“I get the point about making sure family members are not alone,” Ammons said. “But the governor has to have the ability and authority to make decisions in the best interest of all persons in the state.”
Rep. Cyril Nichols, a Chicago Democrat who supported the bill, took issue with Ammons, saying that line of debate pointed to lawmakers’ tendency to “complicate a lot of simplistic things.”
Nichols said he had recently spent 30 days with his mother in the hospital and “could not imagine not being with” her.
Legislators on both sides of the aisle told of not being allowed to visit family members because of Pritzker’s COVID-19 regulations. Republican Rep. Dan Ugaste, of Geneva, said his wife wasn’t allowed to visit her mother for more than three months before her death.
“These were ladies who’d speak three times a day, only for the purpose of saying hello to each other,” Ugaste said.
It wasn’t until she was “completely comatose” that Ugaste’s wife was able to see her, the representative said.
“That is inhumane in and of itself. This is not about governor powers, not about executive authority,” he said.
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