WANTED (between now and 2022): 580,000 new personal care aides, 424,200 home health aides, and 312,200 nursing assistants.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is estimating that in the not too distant future, our nation will be in the midst of a caregiver crisis. Hospitals, home health agencies, nursing homes, and other healthcare facilities will all be experiencing a shortage of caregivers. To meet the demand of the aging baby boomer population, an estimated 1.3 million new positions will have to be created.
Will these positions be filled? Caregiving positions carry a high rate of turnover and are sometimes hard to fill. As you know, these are low-paid, demanding jobs that promise high rates of injury and, frequently, no benefits. Some ideas that have been put forth for solving this crisis include:
- Providing higher wages and overtime pay for direct care workers.
- Filling more caregiver positions with immigrants. (Currently, 20% of the caregivers in America were born in another country.)
- Allowing family members to be paid to care for their loved ones.
- Hiring retired nurses as paid caregivers.
The above information was compiled in a New York Times article, A Shortage of Caregivers, by Judith Graham. (You can read the full article here.) However, the comments people have posted to the article make even more interesting reading. Here is a sampling of those comments:
“This is back breaking work, literally . High incidences of injuries causing life long disabilities of the back and shoulders. As a society we need to value our elderly more, AND the people that care for them. 9-10 dollars take home pay…disgusting.”
“Heaven forbid that children take care of their parents.”
“Retired people should do heavy lifting? We’ve decimated pensions; we treat social security as stealing from the rich. What a wonderful idea; let’s put the idle retired to work at minimum wage or less. What brilliant person thought this one up?”
“It was the heavy lifting and turning that discouraged me from working in long term care. We have advanced technology in this country and can’t find a solution for our seniors???”
“There is a big problem with the numbers of aides being hired in assisted living facilities, etc. who do not speak English. Many places do not even require a test of rudimentary English. This is so dangerous to have CNAs who cannot even put a sentence together, let alone respond to an elderly resident.”
“Robotics and other mechanical innovations can take the physical difficulty out of this work and lower the requirement for the number of workers. In Japan, there are automated systems to provide a bath to geriatric patients that minimize fall and slip risks.”
Obviously, this is a very complicated and heated issue! What is your take on the “caregiver crisis”? We’d love to hear your comments, ideas, concerns and/or suggestions!
