Just Work: What's Non-Essential About Home Care?

This is a big day for me. Today, I voted with 22,000 of my fellow workers to improve our jobs while simultaneously improving the lives of the people we care for. How many people can say that?

You see, I am a Personal Care Assistant (PCA). I'm sometimes called a homecare worker or a home health aide, and in Massachusetts, I'm also known as a "non essential" health care worker. When phrased like that, it sounds a whole lot like I deliver flowers to sick people or visit their homes to read them bedtime stories. But don't let the labels mislead you. My job is far from trifling.

Six days a week I provide personal care to a fully disabled 83-year-old woman who lives at home alone. In order to stretch out the care, I split the shift. First I go to her house from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. to change her bedpan, feed her breakfast, administer her medications, bathe her, and set her up with lunch. I come back around 6:00 p.m. to make sure she gets out of bed for a couple of hours so she won't develop bedsores. In the evenings I also clean up after her, cook her dinner and prepare her for a long night by herself.

There's really no question about it. For this woman, the work that I do is essential.

Home care is an important option for anyone with a long-term terminal illness or a disability. Because of my work, the woman I care for can remain at home rather than live in a nursing home or other large assisted living facility. She really needs around-the-clock care, but Mass Health (the state's health care system) will only pay for 40 hours, so we make do.

For the most part, personal care assistants know our worth, and we love our work. The bond we have with the people we tend to is a beautiful thing. The problem is that the healthcare industry would rather cut corners and lower costs than deliver the quality care our seniors and people with disabilities deserve.

For me -- like so many of my colleagues -- the downsides of my job are beginning to take their toll. Earning only $10.84 per hour and no extra overtime pay, I've been really struggling to keep pace with the cost of living. I'm almost 50 years old and I still don't own a car or a home. My double commute and stretched out work hours make it nearly impossible for me to spend any quality time with my five grandchildren. And even if I got paid for vacation or sick days, who would fill in for me?

Throughout the country, there is a huge shortage of people like me. As the Baby Boomers get older, the demand for personal care attendants is growing at a time when workers are leaving the profession. I've heard that turnover rate for homecare workers in MA is as high as 60 percent -- which really doesn't surprise me when I consider what we have to put up with. There's just not a lot of financial incentive to stick it out. When you couple the unusual hours and the flat pay with the lack of health care and vacation time, you can see why people are forced to jump ship.

Now I've been labeled a lot of things over the years: a grandmother, a family peace maker, a low-wage worker, and even a star employee. But this "non essential worker" label is one I'm not willing to accept. And it's high time that we get rid of it.

So today, thousand of workers just like me are lighting the sparks of change. We are telling the world that what we do matters, and if they want us to be there for them, they need to start valuing the care we provide. Now that we are an established union, we will negotiate directly with the Department of Health to establish industry-wide regulations. We'll push to match public health coverage with the real needs of the consumers. And we'll improve wages and benefits so that caregivers like me have more than sainthood as an incentive to keep working.

I've now been a home care worker for nearly 30 years and it's been tremendously fulfilling. I don't expect to get rich off of what I do -- but I don't want to have to rob Peter to pay Paul anymore. What we are doing today will do more than just increase our paychecks or give us a three day weekend. Vote by vote, voice by voice, we are reshaping the long term care industry to better serve our seniors, people with disabilities and the hard workers who deliver these essential services.

Queenie Turner is a private home care worker in Worcester, MA, and a new member of SEIU Healthcare. Queenie has been a key leader in the campaign to unify home care workers in Massachusetts and looks forward to seeing the struggle through. In her spare time, Queenie loves to spend time with her five grandchildren and dream of traveling to foreign places.

Just Work is a series presented by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to give a voice to working people to discuss their daily struggles to balance work, afford life and participate in a more just society. SEIU welcomes submissions to Just Work! Please send your story (800 words or less) to [e-mail].

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The 1.9 million-member SEIU is the fastest-growing union in North America. SEIU members are winning better wages, health care, and more secure jobs for our communities, while uniting their strength with their counterparts around the world to help ensure that workers, not just corporations and CEOs, benefit from today's global economy.

Comments

[Merg]

Home care workers are very essential workers and under the kinds of Health Care systems found in France, England and Canada are provided, free to patients. I am also told that the workers are paid a living wage with benefits and of course they would automatically be covered for Health Care. The label 'Socialized Medicine' should not scare anybody though the Republicans try to make it into a nasty word. Under these systems, all people get care, don't go bankrupt, and don't have to sell their homes to pay for it.
Why do American citizens not have the right to this? Why do these Health Insurance companies take 30% of every dollar spent on health to push paper, deny care and sell their plans. What patient is actually helped by an insurance company rather than a doctor, a nurse or home health aid? I think more states should be putting Single Payer Health Care Iniatives on their state ballots for voters to decide. Clearly or Congress and Even our Presidents will not be able to overcome the Insurance lobbies but maybe we can beat them at the state level. We can try

[GrandmaJ]

This is one of the best posts I have ever read on Huffington Post. Thank you for the hard work you do. I am so pleased to hear that you now have union support.
People who are able to stay in their own homes are far better off than those in institutions.

[Hattie]

I'm so glad to read this on the Huff Post. Without the help of women like you to care for my mother in law and make it possible for her to die at home in reasonable comfort, we would despair. Along with excellent hospice care, we have two full time caregivers that we pay $15.00 an hour. This relatively munificent pay has enabled them to survive financially in these tough times. Where we live, the state provides health insurance for marginal income families, so their kids are covered, but they can't afford health insurance premiums for themselves. We can't cover that, as the money is just burning away at about the rate of $80,000 a year as it is. Even with all this help we have so much to do and are more or less tied down to her situation.
And we know that substandard institutional care would be no cheaper and maybe more expensive.
Thank god for the care people like you give.

[ImmanuelGoldstein]

I myself am an STNA (Ohio's name for a certified PCA) and while home care is demanding enough it's better than working in an institutional setting.

Institutions INVARIABLY understaff in order to save money leaving as many as 15 patients per aide to provide care. Many of them are total care patients (they bring in plenty of money) who require essentially the same care that infants do, feeding ,diaper changing, washing etc. Do the math, for every 2 hour round this leaves a total of 8 MINUTES per patient to provide ALL CARE ,thats when all the staff shows up, the absenteeism is worse than fast food places sometimes leaving the aide with as many as 20 patients to care for during the 12 hours shifts.(again do the math, how great a care do you think you can give under such conditions). Instituions treat aides like disposable fast food workers, you'd think they wouldn't given that there is shortage of trained aides but
they have the attitude there's always one more even though they are a revolving door.

As I said home care is better but the benefits are worse.

For my part I'm just using it as a springboard, I'm going to school to become a medical lab technician , as there is no way to improve your working conditions as an aide.

Unless something is done to improve pay and conditioins (particularly in institutional setting) look for the shortage to get worse. Who knows you may need one, but the way things look nothing is going to improve.