My relative is in a nursing home and needs assistance with daily living: bathing, diapers, help brushing his teeth and some help eating. The relative is mostly bed bound and mostly taken care of by care givers. Said relative doesn't have any wounds, doesn't need oxygen, or anything more intensive. The relative has a small and very modest room, and also has a roomate in similar condition.
According to my other relatives, this was the “cheapest” nursing home available between TWO states as they did a lot of research. For the care he needs it's about $10,000 a month. Obviously, there's round the clock caregivers, and an RN on staff all the time. They provide meals and whatever the relative needs.
Every time I contact my relatives, they complain how “no one wants to work” and how “care giving is a great opportunity and very rewarding”. The nursing home always has signs out and is always at all the local job fairs, desperately hiring caregivers. They offer on the spot interviews. Whenever I go to visit, the receptionist insists that they have work for me and hire on the spot “if I'm ever looking for work”.
They pay $13 an hour. Caregivers get spat at, cussed at, deal with violent patients, deal with upset families, change soiled diapers, and clean up all sprays of messes. They do heavy lifting day in and day out, and are always on their feet. Because of the understaffed, they are often denied breaks and have an unsafe amount of patients per caregiver. If my relative isn't visited daily or every other day, they start developing bedsores and get bladder infections, which is from being neglected (and short staffed). Caregivers also get sexually harassed and assaulted more, especially around dementia patients.
The job also makes them jump through a lot of hoops and loops: there's a lot of paperwork you have to do, and a lot of PPE to wear (which many of the Caregivers would complain to me about how uncomfortable it was – masks that didn't fit, or smelled of vinegar and made their eyes water, etc). There's training programs to do. Etc. Let's not forget the Caregivers and nurses are constantly being exposed to sick patients and have a higher chance of catching covid or whatever bug is going around.
The Caregivers are always looking exhausted and there's so many call bells going off, they can't keep up with the demand. It's a high stress job.
But no wonder why they can't keep any Caregivers- $13 is excessively low especially when the average cost of an apartment (1 bedroom) is pushing $1400 a month and gas is around $4 a gallon.
I'm just shocked and disgusted though that they charge 10k a month for basic care like my relative needs (and it's even higher for more sick patients) and pay their employees so low. I was also disgusted when I learned a daycare in the same town charged over $3000 a week per child and paid the babysitters/nanies $10 an hour! I know there are overhead costs but this is pure greed and the rich getting richer.
I'm extremely grateful to the Caregivers out there, but want to remind everyone that you need to report unsafe work conditions. Look up your state laws for breaks, osha, and if theres any laws about patient to nurse ratio. If you have a relative in a nursing home, go by your state and make phone calls reporting neglect and mention how they are understaffed and how that falls directly in line with the neglect.