Home Health Care Workers In Short Supply, Seniors Often Wait Months For Help
'With Workers In Short Supply, Seniors Often Wait Months For Home Health Care,' NPR, June 30, 2021. - Ed.
For years, Louise Shackett has had trouble walking or standing for long periods, making it difficult for her to clean her house in southeastern Maine or do laundry. Shackett, 80, no longer drives, which makes it hard to get to the grocery store or doctor. Her low income qualifies her for a state program that pays for a personal aide 10 hours a week to help with chores & errands. "It helps to keep me independent," she says. But the visits have been inconsistent due to the high turnover & shortage of aides, sometimes leaving her without any assistance for months at a time, although a cousin does help look after her.
"I should be getting the help that I need & am eligible for," says Shackett, who has not had an aide since late March. The Maine home-based care program, which helps Shackett & more than 800 others in the state, has a waitlist 925 people long; those applicants sometimes lack help for months or years. Maine has the country's oldest population. This leaves many people at increased risk of falls or not getting medical care & other dangers. The problem is simple: Here & in much of the rest of the country there are too few workers. Yet, the solution is anything but easy.
Katie Smith Sloan, CEO of Leading Age, which represents nonprofit aging services providers, says the workforce shortage is a nationwide dilemma. "Millions of older adults are unable to access the affordable care & services that they so desperately need," she said. State & federal reimbursement rates to elder care agencies are inadequate to cover the cost of quality care & services or to pay a living wage to caregivers, she added.
President Biden allotted $400 billion in his infrastructure plan to expand home & community-based long-term care services to help people remain in their homes & out of nursing homes. Republicans pushed back, noting that elder care didn't fit the traditional definition of infrastructure, which generally refers to physical projects such as bridges, roads & such, and the bipartisan deal reached last week among centrist senators dealt only with those traditional projects...
Read More,
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/06/30/1010328071/with-workers-in-short-supply-seniors-often-wait-months-for-home-health-care
- Kathleen McAuliffe, a home care worker for Catholic Charities in a Portland, Maine, suburb, helps client John Gardner with his weekly chores. McAuliffe shops for Gardner's groceries, cleans his home & runs errands for him during her weekly visit.
= new reply since forum marked as read
and so wrong 
Sadly, this is not a surprise. 