Save Our Nursing Homes! Call 866-395-3747 to hold lawmakers accountable for supporting legislation that cuts staffing and care in Florida nursing homes.

                     Legislative Action! Help Protect Nursing Home Residents & Caregivers

Call lawmakers and tell them you disapprove of their vote in favor HB 1239 – a new law that weakens minimum staffing standards and will hurt the quality of care. Here’s how this law could have a devastating impact on seniors and caregivers:

• Current law requires residents to receive a total of 3.6 hours of direct care – 2.5 hours by a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) and 1 hour by a licensed nurse. This legislation would reduce the 2.5 to just 2.0 hours. And it would allow other non-nursing staff – from the mental health worker to the activities director – to count in the 3.6 hours of direct, hands-on-care frail and elderly nursing home residents need. Feeding assistants would not be included in that two hours however they would count toward the overall 3.6 hours of minimum care. Reducing nurse and CNA interaction with residents and permitting non-clinical staff to do the work of experienced caregivers is a formula for disaster.

• The multi-billion-dollar nursing home industry is falsely claiming this bill will help address the worker shortage crisis. The reality is industry executives are pushing this legislation to increase profits at the expense of our elderly loved ones who will suffer without the care of experienced CNAs. 

Call 866-395-3747 Now! Tell legislators they were wrong to support HB 1239 and we will hold them accountable because it will put seniors at risk.

 

Caregivers launch the “We Are Essential, Treat Us Like Heroes” campaign

black caregiver holding white senior hand

Long-term care workers across Florida who have been on the frontlines of the pandemic are uniting through their union, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, to call on government officials and nursing home owners to better protect and fully fund nursing homes. Through the “We Are Essential, Treat Us Like Heroes” campaign, caregivers are putting a spotlight on these and other critical issues that put nursing home residents and workers at risk including unsafe staffing and high turnover due to low wages.

The average hourly wage for a certified nursing assistant, CNA, is about $12 per hour. That’s about $25,000 per year – less than the federal poverty level for a family of four.

“It’s unconscionable that nursing home workers who put themselves at risk every day during this pandemic to care for our loved ones don’t make enough to provide for their own families,” said Roxey Nelson, Vice President and Director of Politics and Strategic Campaigns at 1199SEIU, the largest healthcare union in Florida. “This has a ripple effect because low wages lead to high turnover which impacts staffing levels and ultimately the quality of care.”

A new law allowing personal care attendants (PCAs) to try to fill the void could make matters worse says Nelson because PCAs have inadequate training and they can’t perform all of the critical tasks that a CNA does but PCAs still count toward the 2.5 staffing standard. “Wouldn’t you prefer experienced staff caring for your grandmother or parent,” asked Nelson?

Short staffing and low wages were widespread problems in Florida nursing homes long before the pandemic. The health crisis exposed just how critical these issues are and the impact they have on the lives of residents and workers. The COVID-19 pandemic also revealed how committed, essential and heroic nursing home workers have been through it all, answering the call of duty, despite the risk of exposure to this life-threatening virus.

“The name of our campaign, “We Are Essential, Treat Us Like Heroes”, is fitting because these dedicated and brave caregivers deserve both accolades and a living wage so they can take care of their families,” explained Nelson.  “As these workers prepare to bargain new contracts this year, we’re calling on their employers to invest in their employees because quality care starts with caregivers.”

Unthinkable — lawmakers give nursing homes a free pass, now look to cut quality of care: Jeff Johnson, AARP Florida State Director

Retiring in Florida should come with a warning label.
Florida Politics (Op-Ed)
March 29, 2021

Thanks to COVID-19, this Session of the Florida Legislature looks and sounds different.

With social distancing, online testimony, and streaming committee meetings, the Florida Capitol seems quiet, compared to past sessions.

And, as is true in so many horror movies, the quiet is foreboding.

Just as nursing home residents were victimized by the invisible coronavirus during the lockdown of the last year, so they are being victimized by the heavy-hitting industry lobbyists for nursing homes and health care executives in the locked-down Capitol.

Not only have lawmakers fast-tracked bills that give nursing homes immunity from COVID-19-related lawsuits (SB 72), now they’re fast-tracking cuts to the quality of care in Florida nursing homes. Letting these facilities off the hook by making it nearly impossible for residents and families to seek resolution through the court system is shameful.

Piling on proposals that cut the quality of care for nursing home residents is unthinkable — proof that the industry’s self-serving, aggressive push for less accountability and more profit is being fulfilled at the expense of resident safety.

Currently, nursing home residents receive most of their care from Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs), who are required to have 120 hours of training before being certified. Two bills in the Florida Legislature by Northeast Florida legislators (SB 1132/HB 485), would allow nursing homes to substitute Personal Care Attendants (PCAs), who only receive 16 hours of classroom training and no mandatory directly supervised clinical experience, for CNA care.

While industry lobbyists have sold legislators the line that this is an apprenticeship program, they have made it clear that their real intent is to substitute lower-cost, lesser-trained PCAs for more qualified caregivers.

AARP continues to believe that PCAs should be able to supplement CNA care, but should not be able to substitute for CNA care. Unless the requirements for PCA trainees align with the level of training and supervision that current CNA trainees must meet before they serve on the floor of Florida nursing homes, residents will be at risk of poor care from undertrained staff.

We all know that the pandemic has put a spotlight on the difficulty nursing homes have to attract and retain CNAs for employment.

What the nursing home industry operators and executives choose to keep in the shadows is their failure to adequately pay and to provide benefits to CNAs. Most nursing home CNAs are paid less than what many people pay their pet sitters. Yet, anyone who has been in a nursing home knows that the CNAs are the heart of nursing care. Rather than push for fair pay for this challenging and essential CNA work, Florida is positioned to allow poorly trained substitutes to take their place

It’s not just AARP Florida that believes quality care for nursing home residents is essential. A new AARP report shows overwhelming bipartisan voter agreement (96%) that quality of care for nursing home residents is extremely or very important.

Additionally, 71% of Florida voters oppose replacing CNAs with lesser-trained PCAs in nursing homes, and 80% strongly support providing a living wage to paid staff who care for nursing home residents.

Let’s be clear: replacing CNAs with PCAs is a bad idea and it ignores the will of Florida residents.

It is no coincidence that Floridians hesitate or refuse to put themselves, family members or loved ones into Florida’s nursing homes. Even before the pandemic, Floridians have far preferred to age at home rather than in nursing homes; the combination of isolation and infection wrought by COVID-19 has only made that preference more pronounced.

Retiring in Florida should come with a warning label.

Florida’s policymakers and for-profit and not-for-profit nursing homes should learn from the past year and act on changes that would help our older loved ones receive the best care possible. Instead, they are delivering nothing but a gut punch to long-term care residents and their families.

With 11,000+ resident and staff deaths in Florida’s long-term care facilities due to the pandemic, it is unconscionable that Florida’s lawmakers are focusing on the welfare of nursing home operators and executives rather than the care and well-being of residents.

___

Jeff Johnson is the state director of AARP Florida.

COVID-19 Bills Would Protect Florida Nursing Homes From Neglect Lawsuits, Opponents Say

TWO BILLS BEING CONSIDERED BY FLORIDA LAWMAKERS WOULD MAKE IT HARDER FOR PEOPLE TO SUE HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS IN COVID-19-RELATED CASES. OPPONENTS SAY NURSING HOMES SHOULD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE.

WLRN, Wednesday, March 10, 2021 by Jacob Wentz (WUSF)

AARP Florida is pressing members of the Legislature to oppose two bills that would grant health care providers some immunity from COVID-19-related lawsuits.

The bills, first introduced by Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, would protect health care providers from lawsuits over abuse, neglect and financial exploitation, said Jack McCray, advocacy manager for AARP.

Health care providers covered under the proposed bills include nursing homes, assisted living facilities, hospitals and other facilities defined by the state.

But opponents argue nursing homes and long-term care facilities should not be included in the civil liability protections because the institutions have historically required significant reform in the face of abuse.

“Florida’s procedures for negligence actions in nursing homes are already among the most difficult and complicated to maneuver in the country,” McCray said. “They are among the most vulnerable residents in the state of Florida. Negligence or exploitation in any form is unacceptable in a nursing home.”

More than 10,700 residents and staff of long-term care facilities have died in Florida due to complications from COVID-19. That’s 33 percent of Florida’s overall death toll from the virus.

Proponents say the state should shield health care providers from unnecessary lawsuits, citing structural and logistical challenges, such as staffing, that goes beyond the control of the institutions.

But opponents argue the bills (House Bill 7005 and Senate Bill 74) would make it harder for mistreated patients to hold health care providers accountable.

“So far the focus has been on the welfare of the industry and not the welfare of the nursing home residents,” McCray said. “Clearly this legislation is being promoted by the nursing home industry. If nursing homes are doing the right thing, they shouldn’t have to worry about it.”

Across party lines, Florida voters 50-plus support the right of residents to hold nursing homes accountable for neglect, mistreatment or abuse.

The AARP surveyed 1,000 Florida registered voters over 50 and found that 95% of respondents support the right of residents and their families to hold nursing homes and other long-term care facilities accountable for neglect, mistreatment or abuse. The support was the same across party lines, the survey found.

“So this really should not be a political issue, this should be an issue of quality care,” McCray said.

The AARP supports measures that would lead to quality improvements at long-term care facilities, such as adequate staffing and increased pay for employees. Providing more oversight at these facilities would also improve care, McCray said.

“This year, we have encouraged the legislature that this is an opportunity to really take a look and to develop a blueprint for the future of long-term care in Florida — one that’s going to bring long-term care out of the shadows into the sunshine,” McCray said. “There are countless things that can be done and that’s where the focus ought to be, not on civil liability immunity.”

WINK NEWS: Is a COVID-19 cover-up leading to case spread at a Fort Myers nursing home?

Reporter: Lauren Sweeney

Workers from Heritage Park Rehabilitation and Healthcare, who wished to remain anonymous, told WINK News that they are not being informed about possible infections of COVID-19 at the facility.

“We are walking into a room, not knowing if that person is positive or negative,” said one staff member.

According to a report published Wednesday from the Florida Department of Health, 26 staff at the facility are currently positive with COVID-19.

The same report showed that 13 residents with the virus were “transferred out” and no one residing at the Heritage Park facility in Fort Myers currently has the virus.

However, staff members told WINK News they fear that the case count is not accurate because the facility is no longer testing residents.

“At one point in time when they had a COVID-19 isolation unit, they were taking protocols to control spread by keeping it with the same staff,” said another staff member who also wished to remain anonymous.

In July, workers said management boasted the facility was “COVID-Free”.

But, a WINK News analysis of archived Department of Health case reports found a discrepancy.

From June 30, through July 7, the facility did not provide any updated case numbers to the Department of Health. Each day in that timeframe lists the reporting information from June 30.

Then, on July 9, when updated information is available, the number of positive residents dropped from 28 to 1.

The Department of Health and AHCA did not address questions about the apparent discrepancies found in case reporting.

AHCA said facilities report their own COVID-19 case information but failed to address follow up questions.

An executive order signed by Governor Ron Desantis in June required bi-weekly COVID-19 testing of all nursing home staff statewide.

The state does not require facilities to test residents routinely.

These recent worker concerns come months after the nation’s largest healthcare workers union filed complaints with state and federal regulators about safety concerns at Heritage Park.

WINK News first reported in May worker concerns regarding protective equipment and notification about patient’s COVID-19 status.

A worker in May said the staff only found out about the facility’s positive residents after looking at the Department of Health data online.

“I don’t like watching people get sick I don’t like watching people die,” said Damien Dixon, a resident at Heritage Park who said he had to sneak away from administrators to call WINK News.

According to Dixon, the quality of patient care at the facility has declined since the beginning of the pandemic.

In late May, the Agency for Healthcare administration found several deficiencies at Heritage Park related to COVID-19.

MORE: Find COVID-19 cases at long-term care facilities 

Masks, gowns and other protective equipment were not readily available according to the report.

Inspectors also found two isolation rooms without signage to alert staff that it was isolation room or provide any information about why the patient was isolated.

COVID-19 positive residents are supposed to be in isolation rooms according to CDC guidelines.

In July, inspectors returned to find, “The facility failed to thoroughly evaluate resident’s needs and update the facility assessment to identify resources to provide necessary care and services to residents affected with the Novel COVID-19.”

Heritage Park reported to AHCA after the May and June inspections, that it would take corrective action.

AHCA has not answered WINK News inquiries on whether or not the facility is now in compliance.

Workers claim the problems still exist, and administrators are only interested in clearing the deficiencies so they can admit patients again.

“We can’t admit anybody because we have to clear our tags, because when you don’t admit anybody, that means the building’s not making any money,” said a staff member.

Consulate Healthcare, the company that owns Heritage Park, did not respond to several inquiries from WINK News.

Reuters: Florida’s Care Workers Battle to Protect the Elderly

BY ZACHARY FAGENSON AND LYNSEY WEATHERSPOON  17 AUGUST 2020

No place seems safe for Elonda English, not even her car.

Just after sunrise on a recent Wednesday she emerged from an overnight shift at the Lake Mary Health and Rehabilitation Center, a nursing home about 30 minutes north of Orlando, wearing a surgical mask and a condensation-fogged face shield.

In a parking lot surrounded by oak trees with billowing Spanish moss she pulled out what she calls her COVID bag, stuffed with an arsenal of sanitizers, from the trunk of her silver Kia Forte.

After slipping off her sneakers and spraying them down with disinfectant, she misted her feet, sandals, and her still-clothed body as she got into her car and pulled off her mask, waving at other masked nurses arriving for the day shift.

At her home in a small gated development of beige and dark green stucco townhouses and apartments, she’s greeted by a plaque outside of her front door.

The words of Psalm 91 are printed on a posterboard with an American flag, renamed the “2020 COVID Prayer of Protection.”

Inside, her 50-year-old mother Evelena Campbell, who drives a bus for another nearby nursing home, has been quarantined for the past week after testing positive for the coronavirus.

English, 35, a certified nursing assistant (CNA), is one of tens of thousands of elder care workers across Florida who for months have shouldered much of the weight and some of the losses of a growing pandemic that lingers across the peninsula, infecting more than a half a million people and killing nearly 9,000 others.

While much of the focus has been on doctors and nurses working in intensive care units, particularly in hard-hit South Florida, nurses caring for the elderly in places like Central Florida, with its massive retiree population, have long struggled for better pay, benefits and staffing levels.

Now in the midst of a pandemic with no end in sight they find themselves even further strained.

“We are the foundation, and when your foundation has a crack in it you know it’s going to fall,” English told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The pandemic has also laid bare the demographic and financial disparities in the ranks of nursing home employees, many of whom are poorly paid Black workers working multiple jobs with few benefits.

“I would say of the facilities that we represent 95% (of the CNAs) are females and I would say a good 60% of those are African-Americans and 30% are Haitian-American,” said Clara Smith, central Florida regional director for 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East labor union.

In Smith’s region, the union represents about 15,000 workers spread across 76 nursing homes and similar facilities.

About 1,200 of those work for Consulate Health Care, the owner of the Lake Mary facility and the predominant nursing home company in the state.

So far one staff member has tested positive for COVID-19 at the Lady Mary Health center.

The pay across the industry is paltry.

Smith said the starting rate is $10.40 per hour in line with a four-year-old bargaining agreement. Most CNAs in the union make between $11 and $12 per hour. The state’s minimum hourly wage is $8.56, by law.

They’re offered health care insurance, but most don’t take it due to the high cost of premiums and deductibles.

The pandemic exacerbated the pay issues after nurses and other workers began falling sick and were forced to quarantine, sometimes more than once.

In some cases they were told they would have to use their vacation time, and the union is fighting with many companies for added hazard pay.

Smith said the union was able to file complaints with the federal government’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration and have those orders removed and the facility administrators replaced, but it’s still happening in some places.

Laura Gee, a 65-year-old CNA, who works at the Rosewood Health and Rehabilitation Center on the outskirts of Orlando, had to take time off work after experiencing symptoms similar to those in people suffering from COVID-19.

Gee was quarantined for eight days before testing negative and returning to work.

Prior, she was working up to 75 hours a week, and sometimes 100 after other nurses fell ill and couldn’t work.

Despite the low pay, the danger and the fact that Gee is diabetic and was hospitalized three times before the pandemic with respiratory issues, she said she and other CNAs remain committed to their patients, no matter the situation.

“The higher-up people can be kind of hard on us, we’re tired, we’re drained, we walk around like zombies and it’s only the residents that make us feel appreciated,” said Gee.

“I’m there for my residents and that’s how I keep going. I’m not there to please the administration, the nurses, or the head honchos. I’m there to take care of my residents, to make sure they’re clean and happy and to give them love.”

Nevertheless, both nursing home residents and workers continue to bear the brunt of the pandemic in Florida.

About one in five Florida residents is a senior aged 65 or older. Statewide there were about 140,000 residents and about 196,000 staff in assisted living facilities and skilled nursing facilities, according to the Florida Department of Health and the Agency for Healthcare Administration.

Of those 5,317 residents and 5,442 staff were positive for COVID-19 as of August 11. Those figures don’t include individuals who either died or recovered from the disease.

As of mid-August, the total number of individuals age 65 and older who died due to COVID-19 was about 7,200 or about 82% of the state’s total deaths.

Brian Fox, head of the national nursing home watchdog group Families For Better Care, said the tragedy has been years in the making due to a growing trend of investment groups setting their sights on senior care and a failure of state and federal governments to provide adequate testing, guidance and safety equipment for nursing home workers at the onset of the virus.

“The bottom line took precedence over care and quality, and across Florida they scaled back on the one thing that costs them so much and that’s the labor costs,” Fox told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

A group of university researchers earlier this year released a study examining how private equity firms’ investments in nursing home companies have affected residents and employees.

Funds have been moving aggressively into the space nationwide over the last two decades. In 2004 there were 600 private equity deals for nursing homes. This hit 1,500 in 2019.

Among the findings were that acquisitions associated with private equity firms led to less money being spent on staffing and higher resident density, all leading to a lower quality of care as determined by the government’s five-star rating system for nursing homes.

“We expect that private equity-owned nursing homes would be less prepared in an emergency situation like this,” said lead researcher Atul Gupta, an assistant professor in the department of health care management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Consulate Health Care, owned by Atlanta-based private equity firm Formation Capital, has in recent years come under fire for everything from poor care leading to patients’ deaths to overcharging government programs for medically unnecessary treatments.

Consulate is the largest nursing home operator in Florida and the sixth largest in the country. Congress in June began investigating it and four other of the nation’s largest, for-profit healthcare providers over its handling over the novel coronavirus.

A statement from Consulate said the company had maintained a “vigilant focus” on protecting patients, staff and families since the onset of COVID-19 and its rates of infection, hospitalizations and deaths were better than national averages.

It had also given iPads to each center for families to stay in touch, provided bonuses to front line caregivers, compassion pay, and paid for COVID testing, among other measures.

“We have remained steadfast in our commitment to care for, and protect, our residents and staff during this unprecedented time and will continue to do so with compassion and vigilance,” the company said in a statement.

At English’s nursing home, she said workers were given disposable face masks at the beginning of the pandemic and told to make them last for 30 days. That dropped to 20 days after the union intervened.

English, who is diabetic, said a face shield she received was so flimsy she bought her own.

English was resigned to the fact that the pandemic has, for at least the foreseeable future, unalterably changed the way she works and lives.

Many are concerned about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ recently announced plans to begin exploring how to reopen the state’s nursing homes to visitors, particularly the families of those residents who have been locked out since early March.

“I think a lot of the family members understand that these are difficult circumstances,” DeSantis said during a coronavirus press conference earlier this month in Jacksonville.

“Clearly they would not want policies to be done that would lead to massive amounts of people in these facilities getting infected. But I think that if you have a way forward, I think that would put a lot of people at ease, knowing that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”

Critics, however, are concerned that such a plan, without quick accurate testing, poses a massive risk for the already suffering industry and those living and working in it.

Whether that happens English still has procedures in place to minimize her risk of bringing the virus home from her job, or going out and getting exposed.

She’s constantly sanitizing every surface of her home and all but stopped leaving her house for anything other than the essentials.

“Things just aren’t the same anymore,” she said while in her kitchen preparing food for the workday ahead.

“You can’t enjoy life like you used to, you can’t go to restaurants, and now you almost have to be suspicious of everyone because you don’t know what people are doing and some people don’t even want to wear their mask.”

As she put on her mask she double checked her cooler bag. She brings her own plastic utensils, her own water, and food that won’t need to be reheated.

Even her insulin is sequestered. She packs it with ice into a small vacuum bottle before heading out the door with every day looking more and more like an endless unknown.