Tamara Pirkle skipped work Wednesday to join about 250 people crowded into a Department of Community Health public hearing.
Her sentiment was almost universal among the folks that filled the downtown Atlanta boardroom and spilled into an overflow area with video monitors and into the hallways. "Don't change the rules on assisted living facilities," Pirkle said.
A proposed rule change before the DCH would require that everyone living at an assisted living facility be able to exit the building under his or her own power during an emergency such as a fire.
Should the new rule pass, those who would need help getting out could be forced to transfer to nursing homes, which generally are more expensive and are required to have more staffers on hand.
Already, the state is backing off the proposed changes as currently written, said Doug Colburn, the DCH's director of health care facility regulation.
"At the end of the day, it won't be a rule that will put people out of an assisted living home, or put anyone out of business," he said.
"What we ultimately put forward, won't be this," he said.
More than 30,000 Georgians live in thousands of assisted living facilities across the state, according to Genia Ryan, the president of the Georgia chapter of the Assisted Living Federation of America.
The idea proposed by the DCH staff is to make assisted living facilities as safe as nursing homes, said Colburn.
Pirkle, of Sandy Springs, has a 90-year-old grandmother, Joyce Dyer, who lives at the Dogwood Forest assisted living facility in Alpharetta.
"If there's a fire alarm or such, she'd need someone to take her by the arm and direct her to an exit," Pirkle said. "They are totally capable of doing that at Dogwood. But if they say she has to do it on her own, she can't do it. We'd have to move her."
Wednesday's meeting, which lasted for more than three hours, was held to take public comment on the issue. Colburn said that, because of the public outcry about the proposed rule, DCH staffers are recommending that the board table the proposal and consider other options.
"We won't be presenting this proposal to the [DCH] board at the next meeting, but we will work to revise the [proposed] rule so it won't be construed as so restrictive," he said. "That wasn't ever our intent. We were trying to update the rules, with safety in mind."
"If our wording is imperfect, then this is just part of the process to look at what is feasible or not feasible," Colburn said.
At its Jan. 13 meeting, the board will receive a transcript of Wednesday's hearing, along with copies of the hundreds of letters and e-mails from the public about the proposed rule.
Colburn said that it will be up to the board to decide what it will do. But the staff is recommending that the proposed rule be tabled indefinitely.
Many people who spoke Wednesday asked that the board create a task force, and include on it operators of assisted living facilities, to look at any updates in the safety rules.
Lisa Marie Shekell, a DCH spokeswoman, said that there is no timeline set yet for when the board might make any decision or create a task force.
But Dennis Wester, the owner of the small assisted living facility Abundant Living in Comer, Ga., said that he can't take any chances that the board will or won't adopt the rule as it is currently proposed.
He said he intends to be at upcoming DCH meetings to make sure that the new rule isn't adopted despite the outcry.
"There's been a major lack of communication between the board and those of us in the industry," said Wester. "I don't know if the board is trying to phase out the little guys, but if they go forward [with the change], they're going to put us under."
Wester, who for the past 14 years has run a facility at his home for six elderly people, said that he and his wife work around the clock to give his clients the best care.
