COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (KMTV) — A Council Bluffs business owner says it’s time to close, but not for the reason you may think.
Diane Hathaway, the owner of Savannah Filmore in Council Bluffs, has been open for 16 years selling unique and specialty gifts.
She’s closing up to help make a change. Her 95-year-old mother, Evelyn Havens, is in a southern Iowa nursing home.
Both she and her mother want to put a camera in her room to monitor her care because of issues, but the nursing home said no.
“My focus is not for the gotcha doing unprofessional things. It’s for deterring, preventing issues, and offering peace of mind to these families who worry all the time how their loved one is being cared for, if they’re being cared for,” Hathaway explained.
HIPAA law doesn’t prohibit a resident or family putting a camera in a room but it does bring up privacy issues.
The Iowa Health Care Association says no Iowa law prohibits or authorizes cameras in a resident’s room either.
About one dozen states have laws that authorize some sort of cameras being used in an elderly resident’s room.
