State Sen. Gustavo Rivera (SD-33), Council Member Pierina Sanchez (CD-14), elected officials, and childcare advocates joined together to announce the introduction of a series of bills in the New York State Legislature and the New York City Council to protect children from opioid exposure in childcare facilities.
In the wake of the tragic death of 1-year-old Nicholas Feliz-Dominici at a childcare facility in Kingsbridge in September, Rivera and Sanchez worked in tandem to coordinate an appropriate, public health-focused response in an effort to prevent a tragedy like this from ever occurring again and ensure that our communities and children are safe.
Rivera’s bill S.7815 will provide education and training for providers on overdose prevention, ensure thorough training for inspectors on how to identify illicit drugs — and most importantly will empower parents, who are by far their children’s strongest advocates, by ensuring they are informed about avenues for inquiries and complaints to the state’s Office of Children and Family Services, as well as their rights to inspect childcare facilities.
“The fentanyl exposure incident at a daycare in my district was a horrifying tragedy,” Rivera said. “The heart wrenching death of 1-year-old Nicholas Dominici and the terror that families experienced due to the negligence and callousness of the facility’s providers cannot happen again. My legislation will equip inspectors to safeguard daycares across New York, empower parents to ensure childcare facilities are fit for their children, and provide resources to daycare providers to prevent tragedies like this from happening again.”
Council Member Sanchez will introduce a legislative package in the forthcoming legislative session. The first bill of the package dovetails with Sen. Rivera’s bill by requiring the NYC Department of Mental Health and Hygiene to specifically advertise to health inspectors and childcare providers the required training on opioid antagonists. The second bill within the proposed legislative package will explore a pilot program to support working families as they seek childcare assistance. The third and final bill will be a resolution calling on the State Legislature to pass and the governor to sign the proposed changes in Rivera’s bill.
“Nicholas Feliz Dominici should have been safe at this daycare facility,” Sanchez said. “The Feliz Dominici family did everything right, from working with trusted community institutions, to vetting licensed daycare providers. Yet, government protocols failed to catch possible warnings at this facility, and the ongoing scourge of the illegal opioid drug trade robbed us of a beautiful young life. As a mother of a child that even looks like little Nicholas, my heart remains broken from this devastating tragedy.”
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