If you’re having some doubts about whether public perception of direct-care workers is improving, a recent run of insightful stories in local papers may give you some hope.
Two stories in Vermont papers, one in the April 7 St. Albans Messenger and one in the April 4 Brattleboro Reformer, covered a new study about the state’s growing direct-care worker shortage. Both amplified its message and recommendations, stressing the need for higher reimbursement rates to long-term care providers, so they can increase pay and benefits for direct-care workers. “If employers are having trouble now with hiring and retaining workers, we’re really going to see a shift in the next 10 to 12 years as the baby boomers turn 75 and older,” said Alexandra Olins, PHI’s northern New England regional director, in the Messenger article.
The local experts quoted in the Reformer article included Susan Gordon, director of the Vermont Association of Professional Care Providers. Current funding levels “are not adequate to reimburse these people so they can make a living,” she said. “This is one of the top growing professions in the nation, and yet the people who do this work are at the very low end of the pay scale without access to benefits and have minimal training support.”
“These folks are caught in the middle,” Gordon added. “They want to do this and they know how important the job is and they care about their clients but if they can’t put food on the table or gas in their tanks, they can’t do it.”
In a March 25 editorial in the Des Moines Register, Executive Director Di Findley and Policy Director John Hale of the Iowa CareGivers Association wrote about the work being done in Iowa to “get beyond talking about meaningful health-care reform and may take actions that achieve it.” A health reform bill passed by the House on March 1, they note, “included more than many thought possible” and “set the stage for bolder action in the Senate.” Hale and Findley also explained the importance of the proposed expansion of health care coverage to direct-care workers, saying: “Too many direct-care workers are uninsured, and too many more are poorly insured. Too many care for others while being unable to get care for themselves. That’s just not right, and that needs to change.”
Earlier that month, a letter to the editor from a direct-care worker in Maine also explained why workers need better pay and benefits. “I believe low wages and lack of benefits resulting from low state reimbursements for these services are the problem when it comes to recruiting and retaining home care workers,” wrote personal support specialist Helen Hanson. “I do not have health insurance through my work. My husband and I buy our own. It comes with lousy coverage and very high deductibles. We have it so we won’t lose our home. If I ever got sick, I would have to find other work that does provide health benefits. That would leave the people I assist without their helper, on a long waiting list to get another. Some might have to enter a nursing home, costing taxpayers many times more.”
In an article in Inside Tucson Business, Judy Clinco outlines the need for better training and more respect for direct-care workers – as well as the personal experiences with caring for her own parents – that led her to found the Direct Caregiver Association. “”Within our society, within our country particularly, we don’t value and honor people who are aging and disabled and chronically ill,” she said. “And because we don’t honor those people, we don’t honor the people who provide the care to them.”
And an insightful feature about direct-care workers posted in blog format by Washington State’s Daily News Online elicited a string of sympathetic comments from readers. “Thank you for writing an article that highlights the heart of all nursing facilities; the staff that provides the care,” wrote one. “This is by far one of the most difficult jobs there is, one that is taxing to the back, the mind, and the heart. Caregivers are an extremely hardworking bunch that provide total care to those in their charge. They are the invaluable eyes, ears, and hands to the nurses they work with.”
Elise Nakhnikian, Senior Online Editor
enakhnikian@phinational.org
