Health Care for Health Care Workers

I have worked in long-term care for 15 years as a nurse aide, RN Supervisor and currently as a Nursing Training and Education Coordinator.  In my current position, obtaining and retaining nurse aids as employees is my biggest challenge.

Part of this challenge involves asking nurse aides to do the mentally and physically challenging tasks for the same wages as the Wal-Mart greeter and with no health care benefits.  From personal experience, working as an aide, the tasks of bathing, feeding, and caring for the elderly is physically taxing and the emotional sacrifices we make are high.  Most direct care workers do this work because we love to care for the elderly regardless of the difficulty of the work.

The growing elderly population and the shrinking staff will continue to affect long-term care until facilities receive more funds.  I am concerned about the low reimbursement rates for Medicaid residents in long term care facilities.  Increasing Medicaid reimbursement for residents in long term care facilities will allow these facilities to provide the much needed health insurance for the direct care workers that they employ. Providing health insurance will in turn retain more employees.  I believe this is something that needs to happen now in order to avoid major economic problems in the near future.

Latrisha Cowan
Reynoldsville, PA