McGorty Measure Supporting First Responders Passes
Bill requires notification of EMS personnel when exposed to disease
A proposal cosponsored by State Representative Ben McGorty (R-122) increasing the number of infectious diseases hospitals must notify emergency medical service providers (EMS) they may have been exposed to has passed both chambers of the General Assembly.
Current law requires hospitals to EMS responders, through designated officers, that may have been exposed to infectious pulmonary tuberculosis when treating, assisting, or transporting a victim of an emergency, including victims who die at or en route to the hospital. This bill expands the notification requirement to include numerous other infectious diseases.
“EMS personnel are on the front line of public safety, and they know the risks they take and personal danger they face in serving the public and working to save lives,” said Rep. McGorty, who serves as a long-time Shelton volunteer firefighter. “These EMS providers deserve to know when someone they have been exposed to in the course of their service is carrying one of the serious infectious diseases listed in this bill. It is important to their health, their families’ health and the public’s health.”
The diseases the bill will require notification for include; hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C, HIV and AIDS, diphtheria, novel influenza A virus infections with pandemic potential, methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), hemorrhagic fevers, meningitis, plague and rabies.
A hospital that diagnoses a patient as having one of these infectious diseases must notify the designated officer of the EMS organization that treated, assisted, or transported the verbally, within 48 hours after the diagnosis and in writing, within 72 hours after the diagnosis. If a hospital determines a patient who died at or en route to the facility had an infectious disease, it must notify the designated officer within 48 hours of this determination.
The bill, HB 5907, An Act Concerning Notification to Emergency Medical Services Organizations Regarding Patients Diagnosed With An Infectious Disease, was approved in both the House and the Senate, and will now head to the desk of Governor Dannel P. Malloy for his signature.
This session of the Connecticut General Assembly will conclude at midnight, Wednesday, June 3rd, 2015.