For 29 years, Cloreta Morgan has endured the low pay, minimal respect and back-breaking work associated with certified nursing assistant jobs in nursing homes.

She's quick to say how much she loves her job at the Jackson Heights Rehabilitation Center in Miami, and the rewards that come with caring for its elderly residents.

But for Morgan and many others in her position, allowing families to install video surveillance equipment to monitor their movements in the home may be an incurable problem.

"After 29 years in one place, it's like saying that I'm not trustworthy," Morgan said. "There will always be someone looking over your shoulder, and that would make anyone feel uncomfortable and insecure."

Workers like Morgan may soon have to leave the nursing home industry to find a camera-free environment.

Florida has landed a starring role in the nationwide battle over whether electronic monitoring devices, nicknamed "granny cams," should be allowed in nursing homes.

On Tuesday, Sen. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Brooksville) introduced a bill in the state Senate's Health Aging and Long-Term Care Committee that calls for a year-long pilot project testing the impact of cameras on nursing homes and incidents of resident neglect, exploitation and abuse.

The new bill, called the committee substitute for SB 1714, was approved by the health committee and is in the Senate. It invites nursing homes from different parts of the state to apply to have video cameras installed in their common areas and individual rooms if requested by residents or their guardians and condoned by roommates.

If approved, one for-profit and one not-for-profit nursing home will be selected for the project, which could start as early as this year. If none volunteer, the state's Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) will draft two.

Room cameras, which average between $200 and $500, will be installed at each family's expense. The state will pick up the tab for cameras in the facilities' common areas at an expected cost of about $10,000 per nursing home, said Sen. Burt Saunders (R-Cape Coral), chairman of the health committee.

The bill prohibits information obtained during the pilot project from becoming evidence in a civil lawsuit.

"I'm not convinced this is the right way to go, which is why I'm supporting a pilot project," Saunders said.

Brown-Waite's bill comes on the heels of a state task force report recommending legislation that specifically grants nursing home residents the right to install video cameras in their rooms, and penalizes those who harass or try to discharge those who request them.

Florida law does not actually prohibit the families of nursing home residents from installing cameras. But last year, advocacy groups including some with ties to trial attorneys who sue nursing homes lobbied for legislation that spelled out the rights of residents and their guardians to request surveillance.

Legislators agreed to study the issue through a task force comprised of officials from the state attorney general's office and AHCA, which regulates nursing homes.

Their report, released to legislators on Jan. 21, asserted that cameras' "likely deterrent effect on resident abuse and neglect" validates their use on a voluntary basis. It also noted that in other industries, "electronic surveillance . . . is an accepted deterrent to theft, robbery and other kinds of crime."

Concerns about invasion of privacy could be alleviated by posting notices about nearby cameras in conspicuous places, the report said. It rejected nursing home officials' claims that nurses and certified nursing assistants (CNAs), already in short supply, would leave the industry in droves if cameras are permitted to monitor their work.

"It concluded this could be a moderate and manageable way to provide greater evidence of what's going on in caregiving situations," said Jeff Greg, chief of the bureau of health facility regulations at AHCA.

Others aren't convinced. In a rare show of solidarity, nursing home facilities, workers and long-term care residents have voiced heated opposition to granny cams.

Several including the Florida Health Care Association (FHCA), the Florida Medical Directors Association (FMDA) and the Florida Life Care Residents Association (FLiCRA) have released statements condemning the use of cameras and showered legislators with thousands of protest letters.

Members of FLiCRA, which represents more than 10,000 residents living in continuing care retirement communities statewide, also protested the issue at face-to-face meetings with legislators earlier this week, said Bennett Napier, executive director of the Tallahassee-based association. Members also hope to discuss the issue with legislators at town hall meetings in their areas, he said.

Those who oppose Brown-Waite's bill suggest that the camera movement is actually driven by trial attorneys eager for more evidence. They note that the Florida group most actively advocating for electronic monitoring is the Tallahassee-based Coalition to Protect Florida's Elders, formed and supported by Tampa attorney Jim Wilkes, who has built a large practice litigating against nursing homes.

"If you're a trial lawyer, this is the greatest thing in the world," said Ed Towey, spokesman for the Tallahassee-based FHCA. "These cameras could be a treasure trove for bringing you potential lawsuits."

Opponents argue that cameras invade the privacy of residents at the times that they're most vulnerable, such as bathing, changing clothes or speaking privately with a spouse.

"This isn't the same as having a camera in a public place like an airport, or even a nursing home's common areas," said Dr. Jeffrey Behrens, medical director of three South Florida nursing homes and a FMDA board member. "We're talking about someone's bedroom, and that's terribly inappropriate."

Opponents fear cameras will devastate the difficult task of finding qualified people willing to work the demanding jobs with low wages. In an industry suffering from a severe nursing shortage, cameras and their implication for lawsuits, they say, will heighten employee stress and make nursing homes undesirable places to work.

Towey said that could lead to an access of care issue. Instead of installing cameras, he said people who want to improve nursing home care should recruit and retain staff.

"Adequate staffing is the most critical factor for maintaining quality of care," Towey said. "In a nursing home, the time it takes to replace staff could be life and death for a resident."

At a time when liability insurance premiums are skyrocketing and all state-regulated insurers have fled Florida, nursing home officials also worry that footage obtained by surveillance cameras could be misinterpreted to make them vulnerable to frivolous lawsuits.

"At the Morse, in the course of one day, CNAs perform a minimum of 5,000 personal care interventions with 280 residents," said Scott Boord, senior VP and COO of the Morse Geriatric Center in West Palm Beach.

With so many tasks to perform, it's inevitable that some of those workers will make minor mistakes, like forgetting to knock before entering a patient's room, he said.

"When you know the tape is running, that's intimidating because you don't know how it's going to be interpreted," said Boord, chairman-elect of the Tallahassee- based Florida Association of Homes for the Aging. "It's certainly not going to help in terms of bringing insurers back to Florida."

But supporters of Brown-Waite's proposal argue that granny cams, like the nanny cams some parents use to monitor childcare, may be key to preventing neglect and abuse of Florida's 71,000 nursing home residents.

They point to statistics from the Florida Department of Children and Families that show nearly 3,000 allegations of abuse, neglect and exploitation from nursing homes, assisted living facilities or home health settings that either were verified or had some indication of maltreatment in 2000-2001.

For every substantiated report of elder abuse, more than five go unreported, the Administration for Aging estimated.

"A lot of folks in nursing homes suffer from some form of dementia. Families feel helpless because they come in and find them covered in scrapes and bruises, but the resident can't tell them what happened," said Barbara Hengstebeck, executive director of the Coalition to Protect America's Elders. "I am the first one opposed to mandatory cameras. What we're talking about is something proactive a family can do as a deterrent."

Camera supporters insist that electronic monitoring will actually protect nursing homes from lawsuits by providing proof against false accusations. They argue that cameras aren't invasions of privacy if they are installed at the request of residents or their guardians. And they suggest that workers who quit nursing homes because cameras are installed have something to hide.

"They say this is a lawsuit machine. We say it's a lawsuit defense," said Steve Vancore, spokesman for the Tallahassee office of the Wilkes & McHugh law firm. "If the resident is having a private moment, then simply turn the camera off."

He noted that some nursing homes already have cameras monitoring several spots in their facilities, including entrances, pharmacies and employee time clocks.

"If they so greatly trust their employees, why are those cameras there?" he said. For support, camera advocates quote Cindy O'Steen, owner of an extended care and assisted living facility in Lake City.

O'Steen has used cameras for six years in the common areas of Southland Suites and another ALF she owned in Mayo. The 24 cameras cost about $20,000, which O'Steen pays in installments of about $300 a month.

Since then, she said her liability insurance has dropped from $57,000 to $10,000 a year. And families are thrilled that they can visit with their loved ones at any moment, whether it's making sure they are eating properly or bidding a quick hello, she said.

O'Steen said she lost six of her 17 employees when the cameras were installed, either by mutual decision or by firing them after an incident was caught on tape."

"When we first came to Lake City, we tried to live without the cameras, but things just weren't clicking the way they used to," she said. "There are things that just don't go on when the owner is there, like sleeping at night or group smoking breaks that leave only one or two people inside. Stopping those things is worth all the money in the world."

O'Steen said employee morale has improved since the cameras were installed.

"Everybody knows that if they go that extra mile to help a resident, there's a good chance the family will notice," she said.

To date, 12 states have considered legislation allowing cameras in nursing homes, but only Texas has passed a law.

"Cameras have the effect of polarizing people, and both sides have valid arguments," AHCA's Greg said. "In the end, any proposal is going to have to deal with groups with very different points of view. And that's a tough order."