Nursing homes are seeking lots of flexibility, forgiveness, and funding when the Biden administration implements its mandatory minimum staffing requirements for the facilities next year.
Rather than hard and fast quotas, they want flexible staffing requirements that vary based on factors like the availability of local labor, the health status of facility residents, a building's physical layout, and the quality of care provided.
Workers at an Oakland County nursing home formally filed to unionize Thursday, three days after they walked off the job in a single-day strike over staffing, resources and unfair labor practices.
The workers at SKLD nursing home in Bloomfield Hills aim to join SEIU Healthcare Michigan, the state's largest healthcare union.
Maria Tuttle used to have to help her ailing, elderly mother into a wheelchair and drive her to each medical appointment and hospital visit. Now, though, Ann D'Andrea, 95, gets medical care, from routine checkups to X-rays, in her Bethpage home, in a pioneering program funded by Medicare.
SEIU Healthcare Michigan is under a trusteeship for the second time in five years over claims of financial mismanagement, according to a letter from its international parent organization, which has installed new overseers.
In the early 2000s, SEIU locals across the country, including its Michigan affiliate, enrolled family caregivers as members, usually without their consent.
The law now prohibits unions from forcing home-based day care providers and home health caregivers to sign up and pay union dues.
Long-term care facilities continue to be among the most common settings for reported COVID-19 outbreaks in Michigan, though health officials say that's to be expected.
A nursing home in Marion, Ark., is battling a COVID-19 outbreak.
Willowbend Healthcare and Rehabilitation holds 112 residents. As COVID case data continues to show both dips and spikes regionally, in recent weeks numbers appear to be on the rise and nursing homes could be taking a hit.