Posts Tagged ‘Dear New York Times’

We are all aware that there is a Health Care Crisis in America today, but are we aware of the crisis among the very base of our providers, the Nurses and Nursing Assistants who are the, “hands-on,” caregivers to the patients in our Nation? Apparently not – we continue to staff our medical facilities at dangerously low levels, based on a system which places Nurses and Nursing Assistant on the floors of Hospitals and Long-Term Care facilities in ratio to the numbers of patients instead of by patient needs, or their, “acuity.”

The results? Needless suffering, neglect, and death among patients in hospitals and in long-term care facilities. Nurses and Nursing Assistants who are being worked to the point of depression and exhaustion. Nurses who are leaving the field of Nursing, and Nursing Assistants who are working multiple jobs and still living in poverty. Corporations that own hospitals and long-term care facilities that are willing to spend big bucks on high-tech medical equipment and supplies, but are unwilling to invest in the Nurses and Nursing Assistants who are the life-blood of their very facilities through Staffing by Acuity of Patient Needs, and through giving Nursing Assistants a raise. A Hospital in Colorado Springs has put up Billboards advertising, “Robotic-Assisted Heart Surgery;” they have floatation beds in every room in the hospital which extend out to six feet four inches or six feet six inches, yet they send a patient to my fiancée’s Nursing Home as an admission with pressure sores on the bottoms of his feet - what are they paying their Nurses and Nursing Assistants?

As the Baby-Boom generation reaches for agencies to provide healthcare support through in-home care, who will provide it? Nurses and Nursing Assistants will, if they are there to do so. In-home care agencies are paying Certified Nursing Assistants housekeeper wages, which have not been raised in a decade. Certified Nursing Assistants have skills; In-Home Care agencies have created classifications of workers such as, “Personal Care Provider,” and, “Home Health Aide,” to help meet the already expanding demand for in-home care providers; “Personal Care Providers,” and, “Home Health Aides,” are unskilled people who cook and clean house. A Certified Nursing Assistant (C.N.A.) is a *skilled* and *trained* medical professional, with the ability to work with a Visiting Nurse, and react in an emergency. Seniors and Persons with Disabilities need to be aware of this crucial difference when they reach toward an agency seeking personnel to provide care for them at home.

There are C.N.A.’s taking care of people with such things as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Spina Bifida, Cerebral Palsy and more on an in-home basis – a, “Personal Care Provider,” or, “Home Health Aide,” is not trained to provide such care. Certified Nursing Assistants are. As Nursing Facilities and Hospitals continue to be understaffed due to the, “warm-body,” theory of staffing instead of staffing their facilities by acuity of patient needs, more and more people are reaching for in-home care as a solution. The use of, “Personal Care Providers,” and, “Home Health Aides,” by in-home care agencies is creating a very, very dangerous situation in America. There are such things as MRSA and VRE’s in the world, not to mention that new strain of Tuberculosis. Does that, “Personal Care Provider,” understand Universal Precautions?

Staffing by Acuity of Patient Needs is a huge issue among the very Nurses and Nursing Assistants that are providing medical care for Americans now, and who face the explosion of Baby-Boomers that will flood the healthcare market in the very near future.

Sincerely,

Thomas Weiss, M.A., C.N.A.