State inspectors who likely will help enforce the Biden administration's new nursing home staffing requirements are facing their own workforce shortages.
Home health care aides filed a lawsuit against the state Department of Labor last week that seeks to have the agency re-open investigations into workers' claims of systemic overtime wage theft. Home care workers, traditionally low-paid, have been urging state lawmakers for higher wages and more protections in their industry, which provides often round-the-clock care for elderly and disabled New Yorkers.
BAH's financial challenges led the hospital to announce the closure in June of the program. OCHH came forward interested in purchasing the business which hospital Director of Marketing and Communications Kim Winker says would allow for less disruption for the patients receiving care and opened another potential for staff to retain employment within home health. BAH entered into an agreement for sale with OCHH, and upon the August 17 end of Bay Area Home Health, OCHH took over in transitioning patients to be under their care.
As COVID-19 cases slowly rise in New Jersey and across the country, about one in four nursing homes and assisted living facilities in the state have reported an outbreak in the past week. But don’t expect the lockdowns or other drastic measures from the early days of the pandemic to return since neither Gov. Murphy’s administration nor the Biden administration has issued any recent policy changes. And with the national health emergency lifted in May and the widespread availability of vaccines and boosters, nursing home operators are now the ones deciding how to manage the cases as they have been rising over the last month.
Nearly all nursing homes would have to boost staffing under regulations proposed Friday by the Biden administration that would set the first nationwide minimums for nurse and aide care. The president tied poor care in nursing homes to corporate greed and said these standards are a critical step toward improvement. Over the first 90 days of 2023, only 141 of the nation’s nearly 15,000 skilled nursing facilities met the registered nurse and certified aide standards in the draft rule, according to a USA TODAY analysis. And those proposed staffing requirements are less stringent than federal recommendations in place since 2001 despite residents having increasingly complex needs.
Infinity nursing home management has come back to the bargaining table, avoiding a 10-day strike by SEIU Healthcare Illinois, the union said Saturday afternoon. Shaba Andrich, vice president for nursing homes at the union said in a statement that the union's bargaining committee members voted to call off plans for a strike that was to have begun on Monday at 11 Infinity nursing homes in the Chicago area.