By Alicia Harris, SEIU 775 Nursing Home Member
Published in the Washington State Standard
Inside a nursing home, you’ll find individual residents receiving support for their most basic needs: their showers, meals, bathroom visits, medications and more. You’ll also find a passionate, hard-working staff of caregivers who work too hard for too little compensation and yet strive to provide high-quality care.
The Washington state Senate has put forward a budget that increases funding for nursing homes, recognizing the need to invest in the caregivers who dedicate themselves to caring for our residents in need. However, the state House proposal cuts funding for nursing homes by delaying rate increases until 2028, which would devastate our workforce and ability to offer high-quality long-term care.
As an SEIU 775 represented certified nursing assistant and a chief executive officer working in Washington nursing homes, we are deeply concerned about the sustainability of this essential model of long-term care in our state. Families and communities across Washington simply cannot afford to do more with less after years of crisis and inadequate state investments.
Nursing homes are a critical component of our state’s rehabilitation and long-term health care systems. While some of our residents come to us for a short-term stay following surgery or cancer treatment, many more are residents who live with us full-time and receive round-the-clock care.
Sixty-two percent of Washington’s nursing home patients are low-income and rely on Medicaid to access care, and Medicaid reimbursement rates are set by the state Legislature. Although our sector faces a significant increase in patients needing care over the next five years, we are plagued by chronic underfunding and a workforce crisis as a result. One-time funding patches are not the solution.
Rising costs affect everyone, but in health care systems like ours, we are unable to respond to our staff’s need for higher wages or to increased food prices for residents’ meals without the Legislature taking action.
Administrators and nursing staff alike are cost-conscious — we’re not serving steak and lobster every night for dinner, nor are we asking for unnecessary supplies. High-quality care comes first. Without adequate staffing or equipment, it becomes tremendously difficult just to ensure we are keeping up with the basics. However, the reality is that when we show up to work, we still do our best to care for our patients, and it ends up being our own bodies and our own families that feel the cost.
Today, Medicaid funding is insufficient and outdated because it is based on how costs were measured in 2022. This means that nursing homes struggle to offer competitive wages and benefits after years of record inflation. Following the release of budget proposals from lawmakers, it’s clear that the Senate is clear-eyed about this reality and the House has yet to recognize how devastating cuts would be to our long-term care workforce and system. We cannot delay increasing Medicaid reimbursement rates any longer than we already have. If we want to offer high-quality health care to our residents — and avoid a long-term care crisis — the Legislature must invest in caregivers.
For those who do not know someone who works in long-term care, this is not a job for the faint of heart or the dispassionate. Our colleagues are among the most dedicated and kindhearted people we know. Most of us could make more money or find better benefits at different jobs that require less demanding work. But we are still here because we love our jobs and we love our patients.
During the pandemic, we all learned the term “essential worker”, and it includes long-term care professionals like our colleagues. Pandemic or not, our patients need us.
Legislators have hard budget decisions before them. But they could help long-term care workers and the people they care for by adopting a funding approach that keeps up with real-world costs and does not rely on one-time investments.
They could also help by making affordable health care available to the 18,000 essential workers in the sector.
While numbers and budget items get moved around, human lives and human dignity are at stake. Difficult times call for difficult decisions, and we hope that protecting funding for those who rely on skilled nursing — whether for care or employment — can be more than a talking point in Olympia.
Alicia Harris is a SEIU 775 represented certified nursing assistant at Avamere Rehabilitation of Cascade Park in Vancouver, Washington. She was born and raised in Camas, lives with her husband and family in Vancouver, and is proud to have been a CNA for the past seven years.
Dieu Dinh, PT, DPT, LNHA, is the chief executive officer at Hudson Bay Health and Rehabilitation in Vancouver, Washington and is celebrating his 20th year working in the long-term care profession. As a physical therapist, Dinh found his home working in long-term care after starting his career working directly with patients in rehabilitation.