Nursing home workers want to be heard

SHELBY ― Ohio Gov. Mike Dewine is traveling the state talking to nursing home administrators, family members of residents and state regulators in an attempt to fix the nursing home crisis, said Chrissy Lewis, coordinator of Service Employees International Union District 1199.

"But he left out nursing home workers (who are actually providing the care)," Lewis said outside Crestwood Care Center at 225 W. Main St. Tuesday afternoon during a short press conference.

During his 2023 State of the State Address, DeWine announced his plan to form the task force to study issues surrounding quality of life and quality of care in Ohio’s nursing homes. The governor also announced during his address that the group would be tasked with completing their work on an expedited timeline. In keeping with this directive, he said, the task force will travel to communities across the state between February and May to hear directly from nursing home residents and their loved ones about their experiences and issue a report of their findings.

Want workers' voices to be included

SEIU 1199 nursing home workers at Crestwood Care Center held a small event to demonstrate just howimportant the worker's voice is to fix the nursing home crisis in Ohio and to make sure workers’voices aren’t left out of the conversations.

Terri Risner, STNA at Crestwood, said workers are standing up to DeWine’s Nursing Home Quality and Accountability Task Force to be sure workers aren’t the missing piece.

Risner said she will spend only 40 minutes total per resident during her 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift because there are about 87 to 89 residents and, depending on the shift, she is assigned to anywhere from 14 to 22 residents per shift who need assistance.

"We're coming in at the end of supper so we are picking up supper trays before we can even start any care with our residents. We have to clean those trays and get them sent back to the kitchen. We always check our schedules, what our assignments are for the night, who needs showers for the night since we have a shower schedule that we need to follow," she said. "We have to get a couple showers done in between answering call lights because these people have just gotten done eating supper and want to go to the bathroom and want to get in bed. We're juggling," Risner said.

She said there needs to be a better ratio of patients to staff member so she and others can provide care properly.

Traveling agency aides not the answer, union members say

Also, Lewis said the nursing home is paying traveling agency aides $40 per hour.

"We have quite a few agency aides working here in the building and they travel from nursing home to nursing home," Lewis said. "I can say they are not always here promptly on time. They may call off five minutes prior to their shift and there's no repercussions for them because they don't work for our company. For our management, the best they can do is say we don't want you to return."

Medicare rates Ohio’s nursing home industry as 39th in the United States in terms of quality and some of theworst in the country. Crestwood is no exception with a one out of five-star overall rating from Medicare, based on their health inspections, staffing levels, and quality measures, according to the SEIU Local 1199. Like many othernursing homes in Ohio, Crestwood has a notably below-average staffing rating at one-star rating. Facilities like this are forcing nursing home workers to leave the industry in droves due to lack of respect and low wages.

"We are taking care of living people; you cannot run it like a factory. Patients need our time andattention, and corporate is trying to take love and compassion out of our job by focusing on theirbottom line,” said Risner, who said she has worked almost 30 years at Crestwood and is paid $21.55 an hour.

"I love my job and I love what I do," Risner said. "...Of course I wouldn't go anywhere else."

Becky Williams, President of SEIU District 1199, said in a news release, “Seniors and people with disabilities are suffering due to the catastrophic staffing crisis in all of Ohio’s nursing homes. We implore nursing home owners and Governor DeWine to prioritize their care over profits. The only way to fix the broken nursing home systems in our state is to increase care hours, hire more staff, pay a living wage and respect staff enough to work with them to create sustainable solutions."

The governor's office did not return requests for comment for this article.

lwhitmir@gannett.com

419-521-7223

Twitter: @LWhitmir

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Residents suffering due to staffing crisis in Ohio's nursing homes.