Home Care Worker Shortage Means Long Waits for Help

Kaiser Health News ran this story last month, Desperate for Home Care, Seniors Often Wait Months With Workers in Short Supply.  Using Maine as an example, the article explains

The Maine home-based care program, which helps Shackett and more than 800 others in the state, has a waitlist 925 people long; those applicants sometimes lack help for months or years, according to officials in Maine, which has the country’s oldest population. This leaves many people at an increased risk of falls or not getting medical care and other dangers.

The problem is simple: Here and in much of the rest of the country there are too few workers. Yet, the solution is anything but easy.

The article reminds us that the President had included funding for home and community-based care in the infrastructure bill (“human infrastructure”) and that this shortage was not unexpected. “For at least 20 years, national experts have warned about the dire consequences of a shortage of nursing assistants and home aides as tens of millions of baby boomers hit their senior years.” 

And here we are.  The article emphasizes money–the lack of it, the low wages and more.