Colorado nursing homes face pandemic-worsened staffing crisis: “It’s a struggle on a daily basis”
It’s never been easy finding workers willing to help others with their most personal bodily functions for not much more than they’d earn at a fast-food restaurant, but the pandemic pushed staffing at Colorado’s nursing homes from tight to a near-crisis.
The state’s nursing homes were hit harder than almost any other institution during the pandemic, with almost 28,000 infections and more than 1,900 deaths among residents and staff attributed to COVID-19 since April 2020.
More than 2,000 people working in Colorado nursing homes have left the industry since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, forcing some homes to stop accepting new residents and straining care for those already living in them.
The situation isn’t expected to improve much during the current lull in COVID-19 infections, and both owners and employees of nursing homes are skeptical of a new proposal by the Biden administration to boost staffing.
Read the full story from The Denver Post here.
