Senate Panel Rejects Bill to Ensure Care Facility Residents Can Use 'Granny Cams'

Every dollar helps Decorah News chase down the truth on Water Street, not just headlines. Give today. An Iowa Senate committee has rejected legislation that would prevent nursing homes from barring residents' use of in-room cameras to guard against abuse or neglect. Senate Study Bill 3080 would allow a nursing home resident or their representative to conduct electronic monitoring of the resident's room through the use of video cameras — sometimes called "granny cams" — placed inside the room with the consent of any roommates. Sen. Charlie McClintock, R-Alburnett. (Photo courtesy of Iowa Legislature) The bill was scheduled to be discussed Wednesday at a meeting of the Iowa Senate Committee on Technology, which is chaired by Sen. Charlie McClintock, a Republican from Alburnett. However, the bill was pulled from the agenda shortly before the meeting began. McClintock said Thursday the bill was removed from the agenda once the panel determined it did not have the support of a majority of the committee members. Asked whether he supports the bill and why the committee didn't vote on the matter publicly, McClintock said, "As chairs, we do not move bills forward in committees that do not have a majority vote for passage. Senate Study Bill 3080 did not have the votes to move forward and was removed from the agenda. Nothing irregular here." Without the approval of the committee, the bill's chances of making it to the floor of the Senate for a full debate are greatly diminished. If the bill doesn't advance, 2026 would mark at least the sixth year in a row such legislation has been rejected by state lawmakers. Evelyn Havens (Photo courtesy of Diane Hathaway) As in previous years, the granny-cam legislation is backed by Diane Hathaway, a Glenwood resident whose mother, Evelyn Havens, was twice hospitalized for severe dehydration, bed sores and an infection while living in an Iowa nursing home. Although state inspectors would later determine Hathaway's complaints about the nursing home were valid, the home had refused Hathaway's request to place a camera in her mother's room. After Havens' death, Hathaway launched a campaign to win approval of legislation that would prevent Iowa care facilities from barring the use of cameras. "Nursing homes need to be held accountable to fulfill their legal obligation to deliver compassionate, quality care to each and every resident," Hathaway said Thursday. "This bill would have provided a necessary first step for ongoing reforms." Privacy concerns cited by industry Publicly, industry lobbyists have said they fear resident-owned cameras will create invasion-of-privacy issues for residents — although many Iowa nursing homes have for years used their own surveillance cameras in hallways and common areas to monitor both residents and workers. In fact, state inspectors have repeatedly relied on such footage to document instances of abuse and neglect – even in state-run care facilities: Bondurant death: In 2022, an Iowa caregiver who worked at the Courtyard Estates assisted living facility in Bondurant was charged with murder after surveillance video captured her walking around the facility for hours without checking on a woman who had fallen to the ground outdoors and froze to death. The worker later pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of dependent adult abuse. Woodward abuse: The state-run Woodward Resource Center for disabled individuals was fined $500 last year after a state employee allegedly abused a resident of the home. According to inspectors, the worker approached a resident who was seated in a recliner and then "gave the back of the recliner a hard shove to the ground (and the resident) somersaulted out backwards." Two other workers witnessed the incident but allegedly failed to report it, although it was documented by the home's surveillance-camera system. Neglect in Marion: In 2025, a caregiver at The Views of Marion faced licensing board sanctions for his conduct while working the overnight shift at the home. Regulators alleged the care facility's video-surveillance system showed the worker was inside the facility for less than three hours of his 12-hour shift while serving as the only nurse on duty to care for roughly 40 residents. Waukon death: In 2025, state inspectors relied on surveillance video to document neglect that led up to the death of a resident at Waukon's Northgate Care Center. According to the inspectors, the staff at Northgate mistakenly gave a woman medications intended for another resident – after which, surveillance footage showed the resident falling to the floor as three workers stood by and then failed to assess her injuries. Woodward death: In 2025, state inspectors cited the Woodward Resource Center for failing to provide adequate supervision of residents after a 22-year-old resident died during the overnight shift. The home's video-surveillance system was used to show the staff had failed to perform the required checks on the man during the night and then failed to immediately administer CPR when the man was found unresponsive. In-room cameras capture theft, rape, abuse Nationally, at least 22 states have passed laws concerning residents' use of cameras in nursing homes, and at least 16 of those states give residents the express right to use such cameras regardless of the homes' corporate polices. Some states, such as New Jersey, have gone even further, setting up camera-rental programs run out of the state attorney general's office. Other states allow nursing home operators to prohibit the use of resident-owned cameras, as Iowa now does. There has been some suspicion of the cameras among some people, but I think that may be just paranoia. – Dirk Timm, administrator at Greater Southside Health and Rehabilitation, in 2025 At times, the cameras have proven to be useful in the Iowa care facilities that choose to allow them, such as Des Moines' Greater Southside Health and Rehabilitation. In 2024, the son of one elderly male resident at Greater Southside had a camera installed in his father's room. According to state inspectors, footage captured on Jan. 17, 2025, showed a certified nurse aide entering the man's room at about 2 a.m., as the resident slept, and then accessing a locked drawer where the resident kept his money. It was later reported that $55 was missing from the drawer. Based on the video, the worker was fired. The home's administrator, Dirk Timm, later told inspectors he watched the video on the son's phone and it was evident to him that the nurse aide had unlocked the resident's dresser drawer with a key, picked up something and placed the item in her pocket. Timm told the Iowa Capital Dispatch last year that the facility allows resident-installed cameras as long as they don't intrude on the privacy of other residents. "There has been some suspicion of the cameras among some people, but I think that may be just paranoia," Timm said. In-room cameras have also proven to be a useful tool for law enforcement and prosecutors. In Florida, a hidden camera captured two employees physically abusing and taunting a 76-year-old man with Alzheimer's. In Michigan, a camera captured a caregiver striking a 93-year-old woman with a soiled diaper and trying to choke her. In Washington, an in-room camera caught a staff member sexually assaulting a resident with disabilities. The accused workers involved in each of those cases were criminally prosecuted. Lobbyists vowed to 'kill' Iowa legislation During the 2023 legislative session, Iowa Health Care Association lobbyist Merea Bentrott told Iowa's nursing home owners the association was fighting hard to kill legislation that would guarantee residents the right to deploy cameras within their own rooms. In a recorded Zoom call with IHCA members, Bentrott said she was "locked, loaded and ready to go" in opposing the legislation. Merea Bentrott, lobbyist for the Iowa Health Care Association. (Photo courtesy of IHCA) "This is something we've opposed for many, many years," Bentrott said during one such call. "I'm happy to say that yesterday we were able to kill that legislation. That is good news. That was on the House side of things. The bill never had legs in the Senate. We talked to them very early on and we were able to get them to a point where they agreed that camera legislation was not something that they would make an issue this year. So, we were confident we would be able to kill the bill in the Senate, but we didn't even want it to get to a subcommittee in the House and we were successful in preventing that from happening. So that is a big win." During a subsequent Zoom call, Bentrott warned IHCA members the camera legislation would likely come up again in the future. "This is something that will probably come up every single year," she said. "Best case scenario is that we kill it before it even gets any legs." At the time Bentrott made those comments, she and other IHCA lobbyists hadn't registered with the state as opposing the bill. Currently, IHCA has five lobbyists registered to lobby lawmakers on this year's Senate study bill, all of whom say IHCA remains "undecided" on the measure. State records show that in the past two years, the IHCA's political action committee, Iowa Health PAC, has contributed more than $497,000 to various political campaigns, including $85,500 to the campaign committee of House Speaker Pat Grassley and more than $39,000 to the campaign committee of Gov. Kim Reynolds. Get the inside scoop! Subscribe to the free DecorahNews.com newsletter and receive local news, expert analysis, and stories that matter most—straight to your inbox.