To the editor: Biden administration ignores real needs of nursing home workers
Nursing homes across the country are facing an unprecedented labor shortage because of the coronavirus pandemic — and there’s a particular proposal that’s expected to be handed down from the Biden Administration that would make the situation worse.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is on the verge of issuing an unfunded federal minimum staffing mandate for nursing homes as their attempt to solve our work force challenges, but this blanket regulation ignores the realities of the situation.
Nursing homes have dealt with work force challenges for years, but the pandemic intensified the situation.
In fact, nursing homes were the hardest hit health care sector when it comes to job losses. Over the course of the pandemic, our company lost 27 percent of our staff across our 22 facilities. Our recruitment efforts have been able to get half of the employees back we lost, but we still have ground to make up.
Read the full LTE from Toledo Blade here.
