Families urge delegation to back bill allowing cameras in nursing and rehab rooms

Speakers representing Protect Florida Seniors recounted personal experiences and urged Charlotte County's delegation to support SB 64 and HB 223, bills that would allow families to install electronic video equipment in nursing homes and assisted-living rooms under specified provisions.

Stephanie Seifert, co-founder of Protect Florida Seniors, said her mother, who was in an advanced stage of dementia, returned from a short hospital stay with unexplained bruising; Seifert said hospital social workers placed her mother in a rehab facility that denied earlier requests to install a camera. "Within 5 days, they called and said she'd self reported a fall in the middle of the night and was bruised," Seifert said, and when she later examined the injuries she described severe bruising.

A second co-founder described her husbandPeteras having Parkinson's disease and dementia; she said staff confiscated an Echo Dot and a camera she had placed in his room and that she feared retaliation if she pressed the issue. Both speakers said SB 64 and HB 223 would give families the "undeniable right to install cameras" with statutory provisions to protect roommates, facility and employees.

Those advocates told the delegation the bills would impose no cost to facilities or government and argued the measure is primarily about family oversight and safety.

What happens next: the speakers asked delegation members to carry support for the bills in Tallahassee; the transcript records no formal vote or committee action during the meeting.