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Worker Shortage a Concern
in Caring for Elderly
Growing Number of Older Adults, Caregiver Salaries Cited as Issues
Ron Devlin, The Morning Call
September 25, 2004
A former assistant U.S. Secretary of Aging warned of an impending crisis facing the nation's elderly - Americans are living longer than ever, but there are fewer and fewer nursing workers to care for them.
Robyn I. Stone, who served in the Clinton administration, said there's serious doubt that the nation's nursing and personal care homes will be able to fully staff their operations in the coming decades.
''Already, there are labor shortages in most communities,'' said Stone, a consultant with an elderly advocacy group in Washington. ''Recruitment is a major problem, and there are high turnover rates among elder care workers.''
Stone delivered her alarming message to about 125 Lehigh Valley elder care workers Friday at a conference in Allentown's Crowne Plaza.
Sponsored by the Phoebe Institute on Aging and the Lehigh Valley Alliance on Aging, a United Way agency, ''Who Will Care For Us?'' centered on ways to recruit and retain workers in typically low-paying health-care jobs.
Nora Dowd Eisenhower, state secretary of aging, was the luncheon speaker.
Easing the elder care worker shortage, she said, is among the top 10 objectives in her department's strategic plan.
The Rev. Rodney Wells, president of Phoebe Ministries in Allentown, ranked recruiting and retaining workers among the most critical issues facing elderly care.
''There's a lack of enough people to provide health care now,'' said Wells, who heads the 395-bed Phoebe Home. ''And it's going to get worse, not better.''
As the baby boomers reach retirement age - 76 million born between 1946 and 1964 - the over-60 population is ballooning.
One in four Lehigh Valley residents is 60 or older, said health care analyst Angela Velasquez. In the next 25 years, she said, it will go up 21 percent to 125,000 persons over 60 in the Valley.
Velasquez, project director of the Lehigh Valley Alliance on Aging, said most of the growth is among persons over 75 - those needing the most care.
Seventy percent of Lehigh Valley providers, Velasquez said, are having difficulty finding workers. About 20 percent, she said, have cut back in services because of inadequate staff.
Karen Reever, director of Better Jobs Better Care: Pennsylvania, said wages are a factor.
''These jobs are not competitive,'' she said, ''they're low-paying jobs.''
In Pennsylvania, the average wage for personal care attendants is $7.97 an hour, according to the report ''Pennsylvania's Care Gap,'' compared with $10.03 an hour for baggage handlers.
A third of U.S. nursing home workers, the report found, earn less than $20,000 a year.
The result, Reever said: A growing elder population, a shrinking work force and a crisis in long-term care.
Better Jobs Better Care, funded by the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation, is working with six Lehigh Valley providers to develop practices that recruit and retain elder care workers.
Phoebe Home, Country Meadows, Family and Counseling Services, Home Instead Senior Care, 3rd Street Alliance and the YMCA of Bethlehem - providers of the gamut of home health care to skilled nursing care - volunteered to participate in the pilot project. Penn State researchers will evaluate interviews and focus groups among workers who provide direct care to patients.
Preliminary results suggest that issue is more complex than increasing wages and benefits.
''The loud and resounding message we've heard is that workers want respect,'' Velasquez said.
During a panel discussion, employers said they offer flexible-time scheduling, weekend pay incentives, tuition reimbursement and even gasoline cards as bonuses to keep their workers. They're tapping students at community colleges and senior citizens to fill direct-care vacancies.
Michael Crum of Home Instead Senior Care, an Allentown home care provider, said rapid growth of his franchise has made it challenging to keep employees. In 1998, the company had nine caregivers. Now, it has 110 - last year, the turnover rate was 40 percent.
The average age of caregivers, Crum said, is 48. But 70 of his direct care employees are between age 55 and 75.
''Focus groups have revealed a different work ethic between older and newer employees,'' said Lisa B. Fichera, a Phoebe Ministries vice president. ''A 20-year-old's outlook is a lot different than a 55-year-old's.''
Reever, whose project is based in Philadelphia, says to retain younger workers providers will have to change the workplace culture.
''We must redesign the workplace to value the jobs performed by direct care workers,'' she said. ''We must give direct care workers a voice.''
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