Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic are influencing policy propositions on Denver’s Capitol Hill. One of them is a bill sponsored by Republican state Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg to ensure medical patients and residents can have at least one person visit them during care.

The proposed legislation manifests after many people suffered alone in medical facilities through the COVID-19 pandemic. The sickest among us – some literally on their deathbeds – were isolated from the human touch of their closest loved ones because facilities, trying to curb COVID spread, limited and eliminated visits.

This tragic reality was emotionally detailed Feb. 1 at the state Capitol when, as Colorado Politics reported, several families recounted situations of losing loved ones without in-person interaction in their final days alive. After a wife shared her story of watching her husband breathe his last breath through an iPad, Alamosa Republican state Sen. Cleave Simpson said the testimony “was among the most heartbreaking” he has heard.

Sonnenberg’s legislative proposal, Senate Bill 53, would also require hospitals, nursing care and assisted-living residences to have written policies and procedures regarding visitation rights. As for future pandemics, the proposed legislation would prevent facilities from prohibiting visitation expressly to reduce the risk of transmission of a pandemic disease – though facilities would rightly reserve the authority to implement other mitigation measures.

While consideration should be given to mitigating viral spread in high-risk medical environments, Sonnenberg has crafted a moderate piece of legislation that seeks reasonable compromise. Sonnenberg has added amendments after listening to feedback from opponents.

Perhaps more important, the bill’s language is structured to track with federal regulations, namely the kind of Medicare and Medicaid restrictions and amendments that the Colorado Hospital Association said are needed for them to be flexible enough to respond to “rapidly evolving public health scenarios” – specifically, ever-changing rules and guidelines from the federal government.

Moreover, it’s not as if the bill is against measures to curb viral transmission. Facilities would reserve the option to deny visitors who show symptoms. They could also require testing, masking and a signed waiver on the risks.

Though Sonnenberg has hinted he’s willing to compromise even more, the “Kill” committee typically terminates anything the Republican minority proposes without due consideration. That said, the bill is commonsensical in its pragmatic goals of improved visitation policy transparency and guaranteeing minimal visitation rights for sick and dying patients.

So much so, in fact, the Democrat chair of the “Kill” committee, Sen. Julie Gonzales of Denver, agreed to further discussion. It came Feb. 1 after she emotionally attested to the plight of isolated parents, telling of three family funerals in one week because of the virus.

This leads us to Thursday when the committee is tentatively slated to vote on the bill. As Democrats have three of five committee seats, the bill – viewed along partisan lines – is a long shot to land on the desk of Gov. Jared Polis.

But, as Sonnenberg told Gonzales at the end of the Feb. 1 hearing, if she’s willing to put her name on it, the state has a chance at a bipartisan solution in divided times – one of compassion that we suspect most Coloradans support without regard for their politics.

Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial Board