Consumer Advocates Target Bed Rails

The National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, a long-term care consumer watchdog organization, has demanded mandatory minimum safety standards for adult portable bed rails. The group's memo follows the recent Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) voluntary recall of bed handles associated with three deaths, one of which occurred in an assisted living facility.

The voluntary recall involves about 113,000 adult portable bed handles, manufactured by Bed Handles Inc., of Blue Springs, Missouri and sold between 1994 and 2007, that do not have safety retention straps to secure the bed handle to the bed frame. According to the CPSC, "When attached to an adult's bed without the use of safety retention straps, the handle can shift out of place, creating a dangerous gap between the bed handle and the side of the mattress. This can pose a serious risk of entrapment, strangulation and death."

The CPSC has received 155 bed rail-related fatality reports that occurred in private homes, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, hospices and other locations from 2003 to 2012. 

Contact:  Elliott Frost, efrost@leadinageny.org, 518-867-8832