Study Finds Link Between Low Staffing, Nursing Home Deaths

Posted by on May 15th, 2012 at 9:25 am | No Comments »

Plenty of studies have shown that care quality in nursing homes suffers when nursing assistants “work short,” but a new analysis of Medicare and other data reaches a startling conclusion: Nursing assistant staffing levels may literally be a matter of life and death for nursing home residents.

A group of researchers from the University of California, Davis, looked into why more people die during times of low unemployment, questioning the conventional wisdom that the cause is stress from overwork. As reported in Why Do More People Die During Economic Expansions?, they found that only 9 percent of the 6,700 additional deaths associated with a one-percent decline in unemployment in 2006 occurred among people of working age, while three-quarters occurred among elders. Women over 65 were particularly hard hit, accounting for more than half (55%) of the deaths. Continue reading »

My Friend Kevin

Posted by on May 15th, 2012 at 9:23 am | 1 Comment »

Tina and Kevin

I would like to tell you about my friend Kevin.

Kevin was born in the late 1950s with a condition we now refer to as autism. Since autism wasn’t widely known until decades later, Kevin was more than likely simply labeled as “retarded.” He came from a fairly large family and went to school until he was around ten years old.

After this, Kevin’s history is spotty at best because he was mostly hidden from the outside world. His extended family described him as the “wild boy,” left to his own devices much of the time and roaming the wooded area behind his run-down family home. When he would return home at the end of the day, many times he was locked in a bedroom, sometimes for days at a time, by a mother who was undiagnosed and untreated for schizophrenia. Surrounded by his own feces and urine, it is believed that he was given little, if any, food or water during these times. On the nights that he wasn’t locked in his bedroom, he slept in a lawn chair on an enclosed patio.

He lived this way until his situation was brought to the attention of the state when he was over 50 years old. That’s when Kevin was introduced to the woman who would prove to be his own personal guardian angel. Continue reading »

Home Care Cooperatives Spotlighted at White House Briefing

Posted by on May 7th, 2012 at 7:46 pm | 1 Comment »

Direct Care Alliance Board Chair Tracy Dudzinski was at the White House last Friday for a briefing on cooperatives.

Tracy Dudzinski at the White House

DCA: Who was there and what did you talk about?

TRACY: The National Cooperative Business Association invited leaders from 150 cooperatives across the nation to talk to the White House staff about what co-ops can do for the economy.

My agency, Cooperative Care, is a worker-owned home care cooperative, and I’m the chair of their board too. Cooperative Care was one of the featured success stories in the packet of information that NCBA made up for the White House staff. There were only eight or ten of them, so that was pretty good.

Did you get a chance to speak?

One of our allies from here in Wisconsin got the floor and talked about home care co-ops. Then she nodded at me and said I was from Cooperative Care and we were a success story, so I was able to speak a little about how we’re doing so well that we have hired 15 new people in the last year.  Continue reading »

Tracing the Link Between Low Reimbursement and High Turnover

Posted by on May 7th, 2012 at 7:43 pm | 1 Comment »

A recent article in a leading publication for nonprofits detailed the challenges faced by long-term care employers who can’t afford to pay direct care workers a living wage–and who often deal with uncomfortably high turnover as a result. In the April 29 issue of The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Nicole Wallace explained how low government reimbursement rates lead to low wages, and why well-intentioned employers often find the best they can do for their frontline employees is to help them get the food stamps and other government benefits they are entitled to. Her article is reposted below with permission of The Chronicle of Philanthropy. 

Service Charities Seek Ways to Help Their Lowest-Paid Employees Get By

Catholic Charities helps employees access the government benefits their low wages qualify them for.

By Nicole Wallace

As a certified nursing assistant at a nonprofit rehabilitation center in central Maine, Helen Hanson helps patients with basic activities healthy people take for granted­—eating, dressing, bathing, and going to the bathroom. Because the 46-year-old aide works second shift, she earns $10.80 an hour, a dollar more than the base pay for a nursing assistant at the center, and she often picks up extra hours on weekends when wages rise to $12 an hour.

Still, Ms. Hanson says that after she pays the bills each month, she barely has enough money left for groceries and gas, let alone to put money aside for an emergency.  Continue reading »

Minnesota Direct Care Workers Launch DCA Chapter

Posted by on April 30th, 2012 at 9:59 pm | 1 Comment »

Anne Keithahn, a direct support professional (DSP) in Fairmont, Minnesota, and her friend and fellow DSP Amy Derrera are launching the Southern Minnesota Direct Care Alliance, a state chapter of the Direct Care Alliance, next month. We asked them to explain what they’re doing and why.

Amy Derrera

Anne Keithahn

How did this idea get started?
Anne: After talking to Brenda Nachtway several months ago, I decided to start a DCA state chapter here in Minnesota. I have known Amy for many years, so I asked her to help me get it started.

Since then, we’ve had many phone calls with Brenda learning more about the DCA and the issues it is involved with.

Tell us a little about yourselves.
Anne: We both live in Fairmont, which is located in south-central Minnesota.

I’m a former CNA. I currently work as a DSP for adults with intellectual disabilities and as an independent living skills specialist for a center for independent living.  I have 25 years of direct care worker experience.

Amy: I have 20 years experience as a DSP for adults with intellectual disabilities. I’ve also done home care work. I’m involved with the local ARC and I volunteer for a center for independent living.

What do you want to accomplish with the Southern Minnesota DCA?
Amy: I’m concerned with seeing direct care workers get fair treatment, pay, and representation in the workforce.  Continue reading »

Florida Op-Ed Explains Need for Proposed Home Care Rule

Posted by on April 30th, 2012 at 9:47 pm | No Comments »

Terry Bucher

In an op-ed in the Orlando Sentinel, Florida Professional Association of Care Givers President Emeritus Terry Bucher explains why the proposed rule to grant minimum wage and overtime protections to home care workers must be finalized. Noting that Florida is not one of the 21 states that provide their own minimum wage and/or overtime protections for these workers, she says: “Florida’s home-care workers are dedicated and diligent. But until they are guaranteed a fair wage, Florida will simply not be able to attract enough qualified workers to meet the growing need for home-care services.”

Bucher describes the pressure the home care industry is putting on the Department of Labor not to finalize the rule, claiming that employers cannot afford to pay minimum wage and overtime. In fact, she writes, the home care industry doubled its revenues between 2001 and 2009, while home care workers earn less than they did 10 years ago, after adjusting wages to account for inflation. “Clearly, the 30 percent to 40 percent profit margins of the top corporate home-care franchises are being underwritten by these abysmal, stagnant wages.”

Read Terry Bucher’s editorial.

Iowa CareGivers Association Faces Drastic Potential Cuts

Posted by on April 30th, 2012 at 9:25 pm | No Comments »

The Direct Care Alliance is posting the following information from and at the request of the Iowa CareGivers Association (ICA). The budget being finalized now in Iowa may cut several crucial direct care worker programs, including several vital to the work of the ICA. The association is asking people who care about direct care work and workers to contact the legislators on the budget committee today (April 30) or tomorrow to urge them not to cut the programs. 

We need your help RIGHT NOW!

The direct care worker programs and services provided by the Iowa CareGivers may be cut. A conference committee of 5 State Senators and 5 State Representatives has been assigned to a “Conference Committee” to work out the final hour details of the Health and Human Services Budget. They will determine the fate of the many programs we provide direct care workers throughout the state. The following programs could be eliminated:

House Budget Raises Red Flags for Direct Care Workers

Posted by on April 23rd, 2012 at 9:15 pm | No Comments »

Judith Solomon

Here in Washington, Congress is planning how the government will spend its money next year and for many years to come. The plan that the House of Representatives just passed includes many cuts that would be extremely troubling for direct care workers.

Adopted on March 29, the House’s Ryan budget (named after Congressman Paul Ryan, Chair of the House Budget Committee) would slash federal funding for Medicaid. By 2022, it would reduce federal Medicaid funding by one third, and the cuts would get even bigger in the following years.

The Ryan budget would make these massive cuts by fundamentally changing the way Medicaid works. Medicaid is a federal-state partnership. The federal government kicks in about 57 percent of the program’s costs, on average. States pick up the rest. When more people need coverage under Medicaid, the federal government automatically kicks in its share of the cost of covering them.

Under the Ryan plan, each state would instead get a set pot of money, a so-called block grant, for Medicaid. That amount wouldn’t increase in response to a recession, or a new disease, or even a medical breakthrough that could help people with a devastating disease like Alzheimer’s or cancer. Continue reading »

Send Us Your Stories

Posted by on April 23rd, 2012 at 9:09 pm | No Comments »

Part of our work to improve direct care jobs and help direct care workers gain the respect they deserve involves making this crucial work visible, and we do this partly by sharing the stories of the special people who do it.

We do this because we believe there is no better advocate for this workforce than the people who do the work, and no better way to help others appreciate the value of this work than by publishing stories that illustrate what it is and why is matters to the people who give and receive care. Since we launched this blog and our Direct Care News e-newsletter about five years ago, hundreds of workers have shared their stories with us and we have had the opportunity to share many of these touching and inspiring stories with our readers.

That’s why we’re inviting you to share your story with us. If you have a tale to tell about how a direct care worker has transformed a life, or you know an excellent direct care worker who deserves to be celebrated, please email our communications advisor, Elise Nakhnikian. Include your name, your contact information,and a little about the person or story you think we should tell our readers about.

DCA Expands Its DC Presence

Posted by on April 23rd, 2012 at 8:56 pm | 5 Comments »

Jessica Brill Ortiz

The Direct Care Alliance expands its advocacy staff today with the addition of National Advocacy Coordinator Jessica Brill Ortiz.

Brill Ortiz, who comes to DCA from the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care (the Consumer Voice), is a committed advocate for long-term care reform. “I know Jessica shares our passion for improving direct care jobs and we’re excited to have a full-time staff member in Washington, D.C.” says DCA Director of Policy and Planning David Ward.

Brill Ortiz managed and led several key programs at the Consumer Voice, where her title was Program Manager. “Jessica has been a tremendous asset to the organization on a number of fronts, including leadership over family council support projects, providing technical assistance to hundreds (if not thousands?) of consumers and their families, and by serving as a key staff support to our Consumers for Quality Care No Matter Where initiative,” wrote Consumer Voice Executive Director Sarah Wells in the organization’s April 17 newsletter.

As DCA’s National Advocacy Coordinator, Brill Ortiz will lead DCA’s advocacy campaigns and our efforts to provide direct care workers with opportunities to participate in policymaking decisions that will affect them. Her email address is jbrillortiz@directcarealliance.org. Please join us in welcoming her aboard!

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