Lang
2/5/26
An Iowa Senate panel has rejected a bill aimed at protecting seniors in nursing homes.
Current Iowa law allows such care facilities to ban residents or their families from installing cameras in residents’ rooms to capture instances of abuse or neglect. Senate Study Bill 3080 would have allowed such cameras with the permission of the nursing home resident or their family. But on Wednesday, the bill was pulled from the Iowa Senate Committee on Technology after chairman Charlie McClintock, a Republican from Alburnett, said the bill would not receive a majority vote from the committee.
The bill was originally proposed in 2022 by Glenwood resident Diane Hathaway, whose mother, Evelyn Havens, was twice hospitalized due to alleged neglect at an Iowa nursing home. Hathaway tried to have a camera placed in her mother’s room after the hospitalizations, but the nursing home refused, claing a potential HIPAA violation. Havens later died.