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It’s not a hypothetical question. We’re on a collision course with demographics — and finding people to take jobs as personal care workers for elderly people and people with disabilities who want to remain in their homes will get harder and harder.
It’s already tough to find people to do this demanding work for what our society is willing to pay ($9 or $10 an hour). But as the baby boom generation (to which I — and maybe even you — belong) retires and begins to have health problems, what happens then?
I’m telling you all this because the month of June is long-term caregiver month — so proclaimed by Gov. Jim Doyle. Normally, I wouldn’t be writing about a proclamation or issue of the month.
But this one is more important than most. The people who provide care to those in need in their homes need to be recognized for the service they provide.
It used to be that frail elderly people were cared for in nursing homes, and people with disabilities lived in institutions.
But that’s not as true any more.
“The national trend is toward more personal home-based care,” said Steve Mercaitis of the Prairie du Chien-based Lori Knapp Inc., a home care company. “Locally, within family care districts, more people will receive home-based care. The crisis is finding personal care workers.”
Jerry Hanoski and Andrea Hansen are part of the Coulee Region Long-Term Care Workforce coalition.
Hansen argues that there is a low level of respect for long-term care workers — most of whom could be categorized as working poor.
Driving the low wages are low reimbursement rates for Medicaid — a federal-state partnership that pays for health care for the poor. While there are some private-pay elderly and disabled individuals, the vast majority are paid for through Medicaid. The care is just too expensive for most people to afford — either in nursing homes, smaller group living situations or in their own homes.
Hanoski described the situation with long-term care workers as “a labor shortage facing a huge demand.”
State Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, D-Alma, described the issue this way: “Wisconsin faces serious challenges in having an adequate and stable supply of caring and well-trained direct-care workers to meet the long-term-care needs of our citizens,” she wrote in a letter to Hansen. “With our rapidly growing aging population, demand for direct-care workers will only increase in the future. It is critical that we focus on ways to strengthen the direct-care workforce.”
That’s the problem in a nutshell. Unfortunately, I (and you) are a little older than we were when I started writing this.
Contact Opinion page editor Richard Mial at (608) 791-8232, or by e-mail at rmial@lacrossetribune.com.
