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To the Editor
From the Director: Workforce issues dog Home
Care
Elder
Affairs warns against new "living trust" scams
From the Director
Workforce issues dog Home Care
by Catherine R. May, Executive Director
Ask any elder where he would like to live in his later years, and the answer is a swift, "Right here - at home!" Elder Services, since its founding twenty six years ago, has been working to help elders stay at home, and to provide them with the help they need to remain safely and comfortably there.
Today, however, there are Berkshire elders waiting for help that just is not there - thanks to the booming economy and the resultant lack of available workers to go in to elders’ homes to help them with the daily tasks that are now too difficult to do on their own.
The ASAPs (Aging Services Access Points) across the state, of which Elder Services is the Berkshire entity, share this thorny problem, and the recent state budget has not helped address it.
Elder Services relies on the availability of homemaker and personal care workers to provide care to elders in their homes. These workers are employed by local organizations such as Molari, Gentiva, McGinnis, and the Berkshire Visiting Nurse Association to help elders bathe and dress, clean and maintain their houses, and sometimes prepare meals. Through a contractual relationship, Elder Services uses state funds to purchase these services for income and need eligible elders, but in some Berkshire towns, particularly the most rural, there are just no available workers!
Elder Services case managers are seeing an increasing number of elders who need, and are eligible for, these state funded home care services, but who cannot receive them because the provider agencies do not have enough workers to go in and do this essential and caring work.
The "hot economy", offering a wide array of available jobs, is one cause of the caregiver shortage, and is compounded by the relatively low rate of pay available through state funding for homemaker and personal care workers. Nursing homes have also been experiencing a severe worker shortage, but for them, help is on the way. The legislature included $42 million additional dollars in this year’s budget, specifically targeted to increase the salaries of nursing home direct care workers, called Certified Nursing Assistants, or CNAs. The increased state funding will help attract, retain, and create career ladders for CNAs so they will take and keep these kinds of jobs. Unfortunately, no such comparable increase will lure workers to care for elders in their homes - the budget did not target any monies to increase the number of home care workers.
A salary reserve was created by the legislature to increase the salaries of some of the direct care human services workers in state sub-grants, such as Elder Services and their provider agencies, and was budgeted at $25 million, but a veto by the Governor cut the salary reserve to $15 million. This $15 million, spread thinly across available homemaker and personal care workers as well as thousands of others in the commonwealth, raising wages by a few cents an hour, will not attract many to the field. Potential personal care workers can make as much in nearby retail outlets!
There is a crisis in the care of the elderly, and the state’s nursing homes were effective in making their case to the legislature and thus receive additional funding to help plug the CNA gap in their facilities.
Those concerned about the elder who wishes to remain at home, in a familiar, comfortable setting, where the cost is relatively low compared to nursing home care, have a major task ahead. We have to tell the legislature about the need, make our case, and work to see that next year’s state budget ensures home care workers are paid at least as well as their nursing home counterparts. Please join us in drawing this issue to the attention of the legislators. Without sufficient available workers, Elder Services is hindered in taking care of elders in their own homes, where they really want to be.