CLEVELAND — For the past three years, Taura Tate's mornings have revolved around caring for a woman who suffers from the effects of a stroke and diabetes. She cooks her oatmeal for breakfast, helps with showers and makes sure she takes the right medicine.
Without the help of a home health aide, the woman, who's in her 70s, would be in a nursing home instead of living on her own.
But Tate has her own struggles. Until a recent promotion, her pay amounted to what she could make at McDonald's. She doesn't get health or retirement benefits and has worked at five agencies in the Cleveland area, some simultaneously, to guarantee she'll have enough clients.
"If they go into the hospital or go on vacation, you don't get paid," she said.
Demand for home health care workers is soaring as baby boomers — the 78 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 — get older and states try to save money by moving people out of more costly nursing homes. But filling more than 1 million new home care positions over the next decade will be a challenge.
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Aging baby boomers face home health care challenge
3 comments:
Home health care isn't policed enough. We all want our loved ones to stay at home as long as possible, so it's in all of our best interest to advocate for reform of home health care as a general subject.
Government monitoring and oversight surely needs reform, but what can be done?
And it's just going to get worse...
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