Before a crowd of roughly 60 activists, news media and caregivers from the Service Employees International Union, Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn proclaimed that April Fifth will now be recognized as Florida Senior Care Day in Tampa.
The proclamation occurred in conjunction with a panel discussion exploring both the increasing senior population in Tampa as well as the plight of workers charged with their care.
With five straight years of annual revenues exceeding $350 billion nationally, the nursing home industry is booming. However, much of this money has not trickled down to the workers taking care of over 80,000 parents and grandparents living in nursing homes in Florida, nor has it resulted in an increase in the quality care seniors are receiving, activists say.
Alarmingly, one in five Florida nursing homes are on a nationwide watch list; there are 37 of these in the Tampa area alone. The watchlist tracks chronically dangerous conditions for seniors, with more than 30 percent of Florida’s homes considered below par.
Those numbers seem to be reflected in the sentiments of workers at such facilities.
“I’m wiping butts and cleaning butts,” said Sharlinda Bolden, a care worker at a local facility. “I sometimes have to use money out of my own pocket to buy things like gloves, which only adds to my stress. The clients see that and they worry about us like we worry about them.”
With many care workers employed through agencies as independent contractors, some on Tuesday expressed their frustration at a system in which they are not earning enough and can't always provide adequate care, even as their employers' profits keep going up and up.
With Florida’s population growing, especially the senior demographic, the mayor's office sees it as it imperative that Tampa and the state treat their seniors with dignity, respect and with the care they deserve, and Buckhorn implored the industry to follow suit.
“Hubert Humphrey said it a long time ago,” he said, “'The true test as a measure of society, and I would submit to you, a government, is how it treats those in the dawn of life, how it treats those in the shadow of life, the sick and weak and the disadvantaged and in the case of this discussion how it treats those in the twilight of their life.' These folks who are in the twilight of their life deserve our very best efforts and in order to do that, we need to support you, because you are the ones that are holding their hands, you are the ones making sure their last moments are good moments. When they're in pain you ease their pain, you may be, in some cases the only face they see and I need thousands more like you.”
Adding to the problem, the demand for home care is exploding but the long-term care system has not kept up with demands. Currently in Florida, seniors in need of care outnumber care workers 35 to one. Hence, many workers feel overworked, underpaid and desperate for additional training, support and resources.
“This is some of the toughest work out there but equally some of the most important and rewarding,” Bolden said.
Advocating for a $15 minimum wage along with better training and recruitment of care givers the SEIU, the mayor's office and other local stake holders hope town hall meetings such as this one are the first steps to making changes within an already stretched system.
This article appears in Mar 31 – Apr 6, 2016.