​​​COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Senate is considering two bills that would require hospitals and nursing homes to allow visitors during pandemics, and the pieces of legislation could get bipartisan support.

What You Need To Know

• The two bills would require facilities to allow visitation during health crises


• The Ohio House passed the hospital visitation bill earlier in the month


• A lawmaker is introducing a new version of a long-term care facilities visitation bill

Rep. Tracy Richardson (R-Marysville) plans to introduce a sub bill Wednesday that would require long-term care facilities to allow in-person visits from compassionate caregivers during a pandemic, epidemic or state of emergency, she said in an interview. 

On hospital visitation, the Ohio Senate Health Committee has been assigned a bill that the Ohio House passed unanimously on March 2, which would require hospitals to allow in-person patient visits during a health crisis related to the spread of a contagious disease.

Because of changes at the federal and state level, Ohioans have had greater access to visiting patients and residents in recent months than they did in the first year of the pandemic, but lawmakers want to ensure visitation will occur if COVID-19 makes a resurgence or if another contagious disease arises.

The legislation will be a sub bill to a related piece of legislation, HB 120, which the Ohio House passed a year ago with nearly unanimous support but became null because it was specific to the COVID-19 state of emergency, and Gov. Mike DeWine lifted that declaration in June. 

Richardson said the legislation, the Caregivers Act, originated in response to concern from residents who could not get into long-term care facilities to visit their relatives because of COVID-19 restrictions. 

“The Caregivers Act is essentially the opportunity to say, under certain conditions, we would not want to disallow any family members from accessing their loved ones,” she said. 

The bill would also ensure access for hospice care teams, clergy and home health agencies to provide in-person care to residents. Visitors would be required to undergo screening and facilities could require COVID-19 testing and masking. 

Compassionate care situations are relatively broad and include when a resident is struggling with a change in environment, grieving after a loved one’s death, showing weight loss or experiencing emotional distress. 

Ohio Senate Health Committee Chair Sen. Steve Huffman (R-Tipp City), said the committee will accept the sub bill and have Richardson testify on the changes. Then they will hold hearings, and the bill would need to be passed by the Senate and then would go back to the House for concurrence. 

Sen. Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, ranking member on the committee, said she has yet to see the sub bill, but she hopes it will be something democrats can support. She said her office has also heard from families who weren’t able to see their loved ones before they died. 

“Depending on how they're changing it, I mean, this bill came out of the House with almost unanimous support,” Antonio said. “To be able to have compassionate visitation makes sense to me. I can't give you a 100% for sure that the Democrats are all going to support it, but if it's going that direction, I believe that the majority of the Democrats will support it.”

She said she isn't concerned that the legislation would jeopardize the safety of long-term care facilities in Ohio, which have reported more than 8,900 COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic began.

“We know a lot more now than we knew then. We know that people can wear protective clothing and that so much of the transmission is around wearing a mask,” she said. “There's just all kinds of things we know in order to allow people to come and visit a loved one, but to keep people safe, that we didn't know a year ago.”

Huffman said he expects the Senate health committee will have hearings soon on HB 324, named Shirley and Wilma’s Law, which requires hospitals to allow visitation during an emergency related to a contagious disease or any time when a contagious disease is unusually prevalent. 

The bill as approved by the House would allow family, caregivers, companions, and clergy to visit patients. Like HB 120, it permits hospitals to take precautionary measures, including requiring masks and screening.

Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery), a sponsor, spoke in support of the bill to members of the House earlier in the month. Click is a pastor, and he wasn’t able to visit with two women — Shirley and Wilma — who died earlier in the pandemic. 

“This bill is in honor of them, but really there are hundreds and hundreds of stories,” he said. “We have to recognize there is mental health and spiritual health that goes along with this.”

Antonio said the two bills appear to be very similar, and she said it appears this legislation could be popular among state senators on both sides of the aisle as well. 

“My father died in hospice, and I can't even imagine what it would be like not to be able to have gone and visited him in the last few days and weeks of his life,” she said. “It was sad and hard enough losing him, but not to be able to be with him and hold his hand and see him would have been just devastating. So I understand the motivation for these bills and I understand the support of it.”