Christopher Romano

RE: CMS-3267-P Proposal to change the rule concerning requiring automatic sprinkler systems installed throughout the building (73 FR 47075). Dear Secretary Sebilus, So to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the of the February 26, 2003 fire that killed 16 residents of a nursing home in Connecticut and the upcoming 10th anniversary of the September 25, 2003 fire at a nursing home in Tennessee that killed 15 residents CMS, after finally having been forced by Congress to take action and require sprinkler protection in nursing homes, is backpedalling by allowing an extension on implementation of their requirement for all nursing homes to have complete automatic sprinkler protection by August 13, 2013. So what is going to happen -first we will give a 2 year extension to nursing homes that plan on building replacement facilities. And them what, do you keep handing out extensions to ever hard luck case and keep watering down the sprinkler requirement? Why not just give these places another 10 years since that is the direction you are heading in? Wasn't "Nursing Home Fire Safety: Recent Fires Highlight Weaknesses in Federal Standards and Oversight” (GAO-04-660, July 16, 2004) damning enough about what a poor job that CMS does protecting our citizens? Why step away from one of the few positive steps that your agency has taken to better protect these most vulnerable of our citizens? How many more people have to die in nursing home fires? It is common knowledge that sprinklers are the most effective means of protecting life safety ( Hall, J. (2012, March). U.S. Experience with Sprinklers. National Fire Potection Association: http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/pdf/os.sprinklers.pdf).