Archive for ‘on-the-job injuries’

NCCNHR Conference Attendees Learn about Direct Care Workforce, DCA

Posted by on November 11th, 2009 at 3:40 pm | No Comments »
Roy with Di Findley (L) and Diane Frerichs at the conference

Roy with Di Findley (L) and Diane Frerichs at the conference

The DCA was front and center at “Quality Care, No Matter Where,” the 34th annual conference of NCCNHR – The National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care.

In my last week as the DCA’s national advocacy director last month, I presented a workshop titled Improving the Direct Care Workforce: A Job for Consumers and Workers with Iowa Caregivers Association leaders Di Findley and Diane Frerichs.

I talked about the DCA’s advocacy agenda, initiatives with consumers and direct care workers, and our priority focus of empowering workers as activist leaders. I also talked about the need to address teh egregious conditions that direct care workers often endure when providing long-term care services. I told attendees that the DCA’s main advocacy priorities are to secure living wages, health benefits, and safer working conditions. Continue reading »

Poems by Direct Care Workers: Getting By

Posted by on October 8th, 2009 at 2:16 pm | 2 Comments »
David Moreau

David Moreau

Ellie’s reading the community college brochure
and talking about becoming a CNA or a PT assistant,
complaining to Gina how long it takes,
Just to make fifteen bucks an hour
instead of ten oh nine.

Extra money for cigarettes and tattoos,
I tweak them. I can be an asshole, I know.
It’s more than that really. It’s having enough
to buy oil for the winter or bring your kids
to the doctor.

Of course she wants the government to pay
and remains convinced it’s the Somalians
in Tall Pines or the girl down the street on AFDC
taking all the tax money. I’m always arguing
she’s got it wrong. It’s the rich who cost
more than the poor.

Continue reading »

What I Told the IOM about Direct Care Workers and Swine Flu

Posted by on September 19th, 2009 at 12:43 am | No Comments »
Jane Lipscomb

Jane Lipscomb

If you’re a direct care worker who may be exposed to people with swine flu, you should be fitted for a respirator and use it as needed to protect against becoming infected yourself. That’s what I told an IOM panel on August 20.

In a report that was published on September 3, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommended that health care workers use fit-tested respirators to reduce the risk of infection from swine flu.

Testifying before the IOM panel was another opportunity to explain why direct care workers should be included in the list of essential personnel who receive this protection article. This June, I made the same case in an article I coauthored for the American Journal of Public Health. Continue reading »

Better Enforcement of OSHA Standards Needed to Protect Home Care Workers

Posted by on July 22nd, 2009 at 3:34 am | No Comments »
Dr. Jane Lipscomb

Dr. Jane Lipscomb

Home care workers need federal and state workplace safety and health protection to protect them from injuries and illness on the job, according to an article in the July issue of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.

“Occupational blood exposure among unlicensed home care workers and home care registered nurses: Are they protected?” presents the findings of a survey of nearly 1,000 personal care assistants (PCAs) who care for clients in their homes. Lead author and DCA board member Dr. Jane Lipscomb notes that little is known about the risk of blood exposure among these workers. She conducted the survey to see how often they were at risk compared to the registered nurses (RNs) who work in home care.

 The PCAs in the study worked for two large home care agencies in a large Midwestern city. Eight of every 100 reported that they had contact with their client’s blood and body fluid in the course of providing care.

Continue reading »

Home Care Workers Given Highest Priority for Swine Flu Vaccine

Posted by on June 15th, 2009 at 6:42 pm | No Comments »
Jane Lipscomb

Jane Lipscomb

Home care workers should be considered Tier 1 personnel — the highest priority – for swine flu vaccination in efforts to minimize the impact of H1N1 virus and other pandemic flu outbreaks, according to an article (PDF) in the June 2009 issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

The article’s lead author is Sherry Baron, MD MPH, the coordinator for Priority Populations and Health Disparities at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

The journal asked Dr. Baron, me, and our three coauthors to rush the article to press as part of a collection of articles that was published this month on how to prevent, prepare for, or treat pandemic influenza. DCA Executive Director Leonila Vega was an invited member of the workgroup that developed the recommendations.

“We’re really grateful that the CDC has focused attention on direct care workers, who work with millions of Americans, many of them with compromised immune systems,” says Leonila. “This points out how critical it is to include direct care workers – who often lack health care coverage and sick pay – in health care reform.” Continue reading »

Washington Post Cover Story Asks Why Home Care Workers Stay

Posted by on May 11th, 2009 at 11:56 pm | 3 Comments »
Marilyn Daniel (R) helps Classie Morant prepare for her sister's funeral. Ms. Daniel had helped Ms. Morant care for her sister.

Marilyn Daniel (R) helps Classie Morant prepare for her sister's funeral. Ms. Daniel had helped Ms. Morant care for her sister.

“Marilyn Daniel’s Reward,” the cover story of Sunday’s Washington Post Magazine, gives readers an up close and personal view of one compassionate home health aide and her work.

Author Paula Span makes clear the skills and sensitivity that make Marilyn Daniel good at her work, as well as the many services she provides. Span also  interviews some of Daniel’s clients, her employer, and a variety of experts and advocates to answer the central question posed in the story’s subhed: “She works long hours for low wages as a home health aide — a job so demanding and underappreciated that others leave in droves. So why hasn’t she?”

DCA Executive Director Leonila Vega amplifies that question with her quote: “You can be a home care worker for 20 or 30 years and never receive a meaningful wage increase, never get a promotion. You could become an expert in working with people with physical disabilities or Alzheimer’s; yet you never receive any recognition for your increased learning and experience.”

Span, who has a book on the subject coming out next month, notes that “finding reliable, compassionate caregivers to help keep seniors in their homes isn’t easy, even in these miserable economic times,” in part because of poor pay and benefits. But her detailed and insightful portrait also makes it clear why caring people like Daniel find home care work so rewarding.

To voice your support for home care workers like Marilyn Daniel, take a moment to visit the DCA’s Legislative Action Center and ask U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis to include them in the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Elise Nakhnikian
Communications Director
Direct Care Alliance

Putting the DC in the DCA: Advocating for the FLSA Fix and Our Health Care Reform Principles

Posted by on May 4th, 2009 at 8:31 pm | 8 Comments »
Students and instructors of the first Voices Institute National Training were among the advocates at the DCA legislative visits.

Students and instructors of the first Voices Institute National Training were among the advocates at the DCA legislative visits.

The co-chairs of the Congressional Labor and Working Families Caucus have endorsed the Direct  Care Alliance’s position that home care workers are entitled to minimum wage and overtime protection.

The DCA is spearheading an effort by Linda Sánchez, Michael Michaud and Stephen Lynch, who are urging their colleagues in Congress to sign onto a letter asking U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis to end the exclusion of home care workers from the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Teams of Direct Care Alliance constituents from around the nation — half of them direct care workers and the rest elders, people with disabilities, employers, and other advocates — visited Capitol Hill last week, asking Members of Congress to sign the  Dear Colleague letter. The DCA teams also asked legislators and key committee staff members to support the Direct Care Alliance’s Health Care Reform Principles, which call for improvements to direct care jobs.
“We will not achieve health care reform until America’s elders and people with disabilities are sure of receiving the direct care services they need when they need them, delivered by a qualified worker,” the principles state. “And that will happen only when direct care workers receive family-sustaining wages, adequated training, health insurance, and other elements of a good job, making direct care a viable career option.” Continue reading »

The On-the-Job Injury that Almost Cost Me My Career

Posted by on March 17th, 2009 at 8:17 pm | 7 Comments »
Vicki Erickson

Vicki Erickson

Since we direct care workers have the highest rate of on-the-job injuries of any profession, I guess it’s not surprising that I’ve had several in my 24 years on the job. Not all were bad enough to result in a worker’s compensation claim, but the latest one almost cost me my career.

On January 1, 2008, I threw out my back while lifting a patient with a nurse. When I got off work that night, I turned on the heated seats in my car to try to help my back relax. That didn’t help, so I took a couple of pain pills when I got home. I thought I would be fine by morning, but throughout the night it got worse.

I followed all the proper channels to resolve the problem. I saw the doctor my employer sent me to every week for a while and went to physical therapy three times a week. And then I got an MRI that showed a tear to a disc in my back.

Since I had had the same injury four years before at another job, my employer dropped my worker’s compensation claim. I wound up getting a spinal fusion, which involved putting two rods and four screws in my back, and spent 10 and a half months out of work while I healed.

Continue reading »