Overall, some has to sign off on her going into the facility. Assuming it's one of those locked in so they don't wander out type places. You would have to make that person some sort of mandatory reporter. Which I guess you could, but you would then essentialy require them to dig into a person's past, when currently thier job is just to ascertain the person's current mental state. Really this is the job of the legislature to track if she is showing up for work and declare her chair empty if not. Oregon has a rule that if you miss ten days of session in a row, you can't run again. This was to prevent walk outs. But it would also serve your purpose. But state legislatures aren't in session most of the time. So you would still get a big gap. But if it is not in session, the person's absence doesn't really matter.

To be fair, much patient care happens without knowing what the patient actually does or did for a living. Sometimes it comes up organically, sometimes doctors, nurses, caregivers ask, and sometimes it never comes up.

If the patient is what we would call a “poor historian” which is a typical thing that is found with dementia care patients (do you know where you are right now? And they really don’t, so deep dives don’t occur past the how oriented to present reality is this patient, beyond those generic determination questions, when they fail.)

So let’s say she has no family. Shows up in hospital, doctors determine dementia, she’s stable and it’s time to go, physical and occupational therapy in conjunction with the MD determine a lack of safety to going home alone so it’s now decided for this patient to go to a care home, and she goes to a care home. Who then, inside the care home, says: oh, maybe I should call the Texas legislature about this random patient of whom I know nothing personal, never mind HIPAA.

How would they know? How could they talk if they did, given HIPAA?

Or there is a relative making decisions by phone who never thinks, oh, maybe I should call her boss and tell them. They just miss that part in the midst of everything else.

Does delaying the announcement that she is vacating at all increase the chance that another GOP follows her? Cuz then, that would be why. If not, then probably just covering an embarrassing secret.