Posted on 03/26/2018 9:08:05 AM PDT by spintreebob
People living with disabilities, serious illness and the frailty of old age are bracing to lose caregivers due to changes in federal immigration policy.
About 59,000 Haitians live in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a humanitarian program that gave them permission to work and live here after the January 2010 earthquake devastated their country. Many work in health care, often in grueling, low-wage jobs as nursing assistants or home health aides.
Now these workers’ days are numbered: The Trump administration decided to end TPS for Haitians.
In Boston, the city with the third-highest Haitian population, the decision has prompted panic from TPS holders and pleas from health care agencies that rely on their labor. The fallout offers a glimpse into how changes in immigration policy are affecting older Americans in communities around the country, especially in large cities.
Ending TPS for Haitians “will have a devastating impact on the ability of skilled nursing facilities to provide quality care to frail and disabled residents,” warned Tara Gregorio, president of the Massachusetts Senior Care Association, which represents 400 elder care facilities, in a letter published in The Boston Globe. Nursing facilities employ about 4,300 Haitians across the state, she said.
“We are very concerned about losing dedicated, hardworking individuals, particularly at a time when we cannot afford to lose workers,” Gregorio said in a recent interview. In Massachusetts, 1 in 7 certified nursing assistant (CNA) positions are vacant, a shortage of 3,000 workers.
Nationwide, 1 million immigrants work in direct care — as CNAs, personal care attendants or home health aides — according to the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute. Immigrants make up 1 in 4 workers, said Robert Espinoza, PHI’s VP of policy. Turnover is high, he said, because the work is difficult and wages are low. The median wage for personal care attendants and home health aides is $10.66 per hour, and $12.78 per hour for CNAs. Workers often receive little training and leave when they find higher-paying jobs at retail counters or fast-food restaurants, he said.
The country faces a severe shortage in home health aides. With 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 each day, an even more serious shortfall lies ahead, according to Paul Osterman, a professor at MIT Sloan School of Management. He predicts a national shortfall of 151,000 direct care workers by 2030, a gap that will grow to 355,000 by 2040. That shortage will escalate if immigrant workers lose work permits, or if other industries raise wages and lure away direct care workers, he said.
Nursing homes in Massachusetts are already losing immigrant workers who have left the country in fear, in response to the White House’s public remarks and immigration proposals.
“What people don’t seem to understand is that people from other countries really are the backbone of long-term care,” said Sister Jacquelyn McCarthy, CEO of Bethany Health Care Center in Framingham, Mass, which runs a nursing home with 170 patients. She has 8 Haitian and Salvadoran workers with TPS, mostly CNAs. She already has 6 CNA vacancies and can’t afford to lose more.
“There aren’t people to replace them if they should all be deported,” McCarthy said.
In addition to seeing Dicenso, Nirva works 3 shifts a week at a chiropractor’s office. Five nights a week, she works the overnight shift at a rehab center in Boston run by Hebrew SeniorLife. CEO Louis Woolf said Hebrew SeniorLife has 40 workers with TPS, out of 2,600.
It’s not clear how many direct care workers rely on TPS. PHI calculates 34,600 are from Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras. 11,000 from countries affected by Trump’s travel ban, primarily from Somalia and Iran, and about 69,800 from Mexico.
The “totality of the anti-immigrant climate” threatens the stability of the workforce — and “the ability of older people and people with disabilities to access home health care,” Espinoza said.
A DHS official said “economic considerations are not legally permissible.” TPS designation hinges on whether the foreign country faces adverse conditions, war, environmental disaster.
The biggest hit to the immigrant workforce may come from another program — family reunification, said Robyn Stone of research at LeadingAge, an association of nonprofit groups that care for the elderly. Trump is seeking to scrap the program, which he calls “chain” migration, in favor of a “merit-based” policy.
Osterman, the MIT professor, said the sum of all of these immigration policy changes may have a serious impact. If demand for workers exceeds supply, he said, insurers may have to restrict the number of hours of care that people receive, and wages may rise, driving up costs.
“People aren’t going to be able to have quality care,” he said. “They’re not going to be able to stay at home.”
Angelina Di Pietro, Dicenso’s daughter and primary caretaker, disagreed. “There’s not a lot of people in this country who would take care of the elderly,” she said.
Without slavery, the elderly will suffer
Did I get that right??
It isn’t just long term care.
At least 75% of the RN’s who work at the hospital I retired from last year are foreign born.
I’ve heard complaints from American born nursing graduates who can’t find jobs.
This is one of my biggest fears going forward into old age.
Oh, bite me. Any caring person can work with the elderly. Sheesh.
So immigrants are the ONLY ones able to provide elder care???
One liberal woman moved from LA to another. far away, state and actually complained about her lawn and garden because “they don’t have Mexicans there.” Sheesh.
This will be more winning, for American born/citizen nurses and caregivers!
Here's some suggestions on ways to safeguard yourself: Go to some of the facilities in your town with a friend. Have your friend or relative make an appointment with the owner, director, or person running the facility. Then while your friend is getting 'the spiel' you sit by the elevator, or patio, any gathering place etc and casually ask residents how they feel about the place.
They will tell you the truth.
As far as abuse is concerned, if you're in that position AND you can't move to a different facility AND you want to complain - START AT THE TOP. Send a letter to the Governor of your state telling him exactly what's going on.
It's not that the Governor will ever see the letter - he won't. BUT his staff will refer the letter to a group to investigate. It'll be the same group that investigates all nursing home complaints... BUT they'll be required to send a report back to the Governor's office so they'll take more care. Not that it should be different, but it is - human nature and all.
There are some fairly easy solutions to abuse that goes on in these facilities... but I doubt they'll be put in place. So you'll have to protect yourself...
You're in my prayers... do your research now while it's still easy...
Ding, ding, ding - we have a thread winnah!
I am amazed they admitted this to tell you the truth! It should be a wake up call to Sleepy Session to get ICE on the ball.
My question is: Who would want an uneducated, possibly criminal, possibly disease infected, person from a third world sh!thole (where they wipe their a$$ after a dump and throw the crusty toilet paper on the floor) taking care of their older or disabled family members?
And why is KAISER hiring them?
I still think of the way the Haitian woman on the evening shift at a nursing home shouted irritably at my 99-year-old relative when my relative couldn’t understand the Haitian’s heavily accented English. I took the woman aside and kindly explained that it wasn’t a hearing problem, but that she needed to speak more slowly and pronounce her words more distinctly to be understood. I got a dirty look as thanks. Then I had a few words with management.
Muslims in elderly care will spit on you just as they scream & spit on women Doctors.
Very few people can see the ‘slavery-lite part of this horror... I suspect Sessions primarily sees that the law is being broken...
you'll see....its a nightmare...unless you have a lot of money...
Americans used to take their elderly into their own homes to care for them..
nowadays, they want to somebody else to wipe soiled butts for minimum wage...
Exactly.
They’re worried that they’re going to lose their slaves... again.
That’s Racist and misogynist!
Most of the nurses at my uncle’s nursing home were foreign. the Filipinas vwere kind.The Nigerians were not. The Americans were good but never stayed.
1. Care of the elderly and disabled in the US is currently far from Capitalism. Talk of “letting the free market fix it” means changes to Medicare and Medicaid, and to Regulation far bigger than tweaking immigration and ending TPS.
2. If FReepers support ending TPS, then they had better put top priority on alternatives such as increasing take home pay of the working poor, not penalizing the working poor for working, and not rewarding the lazy for gaming the system to draw welfare.
The problem with elderly health care isn’t the lazy gaming the system. The problem is that elderly health care is often more expensive than it would be to put grandma on a cruise ship. Meanwhile, the workers in these industries, because of cheap non-citizen labor, workers get near slave labor. Pharmaceutical companies reap in obscene profits keeping grandma permanently stoned. The problem is the fascist state.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.