Here & Now

Concerns Over Assisted Living Conditions Amid Staff Shortage

Frederica Freyberg:

Wisconsin lost 42 skilled nursing facilities from 2016 to 2021, a reality seen nationally due to a shortage of nurses, certified nursing assistants or CNAs, and other staff. A new report from the Wisconsin Hospital Association shows CNAs have the highest turnover in the healthcare workforce, all of which has meaningful impacts on the people they serve. Marisa Wojcik has one couple’s story of their care. We are not naming the facility.

Lanea:

We’re so short staffed.

Dick:

Yeah, very short staffed.

Marisa Wojcik:

Dick and Lanea have been in the same assisted living facility for the last seven years. Since then, the facility’s ownership has changed hands multiple times, and the staff, many more times over. We first spoke with them in October 2021.

Lanea:

I have spinocerebellar ataxia, which — ataxia means uncoordinated, and, you know, it goes into all your nerves. But I couldn’t get out of bed and put toothpaste on my brush, which sounds very silly.

Marisa Wojcik:

2021, around the time Dick first began filing grievances to the state for what they were experiencing in the facility.

Dick:

We had a cook, a med-passer, and one or two aides during the day.

Marisa Wojcik:

For how many residents?

Dick:

I would say about 50 to 55 at the time.

Marisa Wojcik:

So what does that mean? Does that mean some people need help and they can’t get it?

Dick:

Right. It meant —

Lanea:

They wait.

Dick:

Some people can’t get —

Lanea:

They might be stuck on the toilet for an hour.

Dick:

You might lie in bed for two hours waiting for someone to help you out of bed. Also, we had an incident that had quite a major impact, I thought, when a med-passer could not find childcare. Again, I think it was a weekend morning. There was no back-up plan, even though a management person was in the office that day and it’s someone who had passed medications before but chose not to get involved. Did find — except, of course, to find a substitute eventually, but when 8:00 meds come at 12:30 or 1:00 or 1:15, that is really a delay. We’ve heard also of cases of people hearing their next-door neighbors in their apartments calling for help and seeming to be ignored for a long time.

Marisa Wojcik:

Do you feel safe living here?

Dick:

One big fear is fire, because so many wheelchairs and otherwise incapacitated or people with reduced capabilities are on the upper floor, with just elevators and stairs to go out.

Marisa Wojcik:

How does it all make you feel?

Dick:

I am very stressed.

Lanea:

Stress level is terrible.

Dick:

There are people who don’t come to the dining room anymore because of the stress level, and a couple of people have moved out.

Marisa Wojcik:

Fast forward to present day, new concerns have appeared.

Dick:

A nurse in January came and immediately set about gathering vitals and she left so no more vitals since then, but we went for months and months, maybe over a year, without having them done for everyone. But there seems to be no end to the number of staff who are willing to walk off their shift after an hour or two and just go home and leave one person in charge to take care of everybody all night.

Lanea:

Well, one thing, they don’t pay enough. When you get just poverty wages, you’re not very interested in coming to work.

Marisa Wojcik:

And still, some of the same issues persist.

Lanea:

One real concern is the lack of fire drills.

Dick:

Yes. But basically, we’ve been told, well, just wait there in your room and the firemen will come. We’ve filed grievances with the state as well. Not lately, we kind of burned out on that. Oftentimes, they just can’t substantiate what is supposed to have happened.

Marisa Wojcik:

How does all of that make you feel as you’re just trying to live your life?

Dick:

Depressed. I feel our needs — that many of our needs are ignored and that especially the emotional and psychological, I guess you’d say.