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Actors Fund Home employees who
couldn’t come to work because schools
were closed and they had kids at home were
reimbursed up to $100 a day for childcare.
Those who feared using public transportation
were reimbursed for Uber expenses.
“I told my board, ‘Now’s not the time
to worry about money,’” Strohl says.
Staffing shortages and low pay have
long plagued the industry. The issues
were made worse, paradoxically, by
the robust pre-pandemic economy
and recent increases in the minimum
wage. The average certified nurse’s
aide makes $15 an hour, according to
Brewer, the ombudsman.
“If you can work at Target or you can
work in a nursing home, which are you
going to pick?” Strohl asks.
The inevitable Covid-19 postmortems
will likely feature a repeat of the tug-ofwar
in which owners of long-term care
facilities claim Medicaid payments are
too low to fund quality care, and the government
says it simply can’t pay more.
Vitale, for one, is fed up with that
dance. “I’m tired of hearing, ‘If only the
reimbursement were better. We can’t hire
people.’ You’re paid to protect these people.
That’s your job,” he says. “There’s no excuse
for managing their care so poorly.”
Brewer as well feels the pandemic
raised the need for urgent reforms.
Facilities should have warehouses full of
PPE— “boatloads of the stuff, more than
you think you’ll ever need.” The state
needs better tools to root out bad apples
from acquiring for-profit homes. “Every
facility should have a registered nurse,
who is certified in infection control,
whose only job is to oversee infection
processes,” says Brewer. And “testing,
testing, testing” of every staff.
Most importantly, any increase in government
funding should be tied to proof
the extra money is going straight to pay increases
that would attract more workers,
Brewer says, and not to the bottom line.
“Out of every challenge comes an opportunity,”
she says. “And I just hope this
opportunity isn’t squandered.”
Kathleen O’Brien is a former columnist
and healthcare reporter for the Star-
Ledger. More recently, she has written for
Oncology Live, Oncology Nursing and The
New York Times.
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