“There’s really no mystery here,” says PHI President Steven Dawson in an interview about solving the staffing problem in long-term care. “It’s a matter of providing a living wage, healthcare coverage, support, and recognition of what these workers do and providing the training they need to do the job well. It’s a matter of political will.”
“The fundamental problem has to do with the industry’s current basic business model of low-investment, high-turnover,” Dawson adds. “It’s based on the assumption that there’s a virtually endless supply of these workers, but I believe that the era of an endless supply of labor is coming to an end…. The approach to dealing with this new era will instead have to be “high-investment” on several fronts.”
The interview was conducted by Richard Peck, editor of Long-Term Living magazine, for the magazine’s website.
Elise Nakhnikian, Senior Online Editor
enakhnikian@phinational.org
I do agree that providing a living wage, healthcare coverage, and recgonition will go a long way towards improving staffing problems. However, there is one issue that seldom if ever comes up when discussing staffing in the long term care setting. And that is the fact that many, many caring, intelligent and ambitious workers leave the long term care setting simply because some administrators want a warm body who will “keep their mouth shut” when they witness abuse and neglect.
The elderly population deserves better and the baby boomers will DEMAND to be treated better. . . the workers are there and willing to do the job, but most are not willing to participate in an environment that can be so unjust and inhumane.
Exploration of the issue from this point of view might yield some interesting findings and maybe some unique ways to solve this problem