Announcer:

The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Tony Evers:

Republicans have offered no real comprehensive plan to address our state’s workforce challenges to date.

Frederica Freyberg:

The governor calls another special session. Challenges plague the Wisconsin Veterans Homes. And a shift on the state Supreme Court bench tees up new conversations about abortion. I’m Frederica Freyberg, tonight on “Here & Now,” a look into the conditions at the troubled Wisconsin Veterans Homes and how officials are responding. Democrats renew their push for childcare funding to support working families, and Zac Schultz brings the first in a series of reports on abortion. It’s “Here & Now” for August 11.

Announcer:

Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:

Nearly 75% of residents said they were never unhappy with care. This is according to the results of a new satisfaction survey released by the state Department of Veterans Affairs polling residents in the Wisconsin Veterans Homes at King and Union Grove. The overall positive survey results clash with other reports from residents, family, employees, and federal inspections citing these facilities for poor quality of care. Marisa Wojcik shares this story.

Kevin Martin:

In more than 20 years, I’ve never seen this many citations and this much in fines leveled against one nursing home in this state.

Marisa Wojcik:

The Wisconsin Veterans Homes at King and Union Grove have been making headlines for years with allegations of poor quality of care. As much as a quarter of a million dollars in fines from deficiencies have been cited in federal inspections. Now, a lawsuit holds Union Grove responsible for the death of resident Randy Kroll.

Kevin Martin:

The concerns were, to say the least, sad, as to what was happening there, the treatment that he was receiving and ultimately what happened to him because of the treatment that he received at Union Grove, and this all came to a head in late 2020, when he suffered from profound dehydration, when he started suffering from some bed sores and ultimately he needed to be hospitalized for those conditions and was never able to recover. The worst of these things happened after he was discharged from the hospital and returned to Union Grove. Randy only had a few days left to live because of his injuries and the day that Randy started showing changes that he was in the dying process, Union Grove staff was supposed to call his wife and let him know that Randy is experiencing these changes, he’s very close to death, so that she can go and be with him, be at his side and hold his hand. They never called and told her that. They didn’t call her until after he had died and they robbed her of the right to be at her husband’s side as he passed away.

Marisa Wojcik:

These events are supported in a federal inspection report, and documents showed more problems.

Kevin Martin:

Medication errors, water being left out of Randy’s reach, bed bugs that were found in the room, his call light going unanswered for more than 45 minutes, unfilled doctors’ orders for a Holter monitor to monitor his heart, for physical therapy, ants crawling around in his room, uncooked food, cold food, food that was…

Marisa Wojcik:

The Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs says they can’t comment on matters involving any specific individual due to HIPAA and other privacy laws.

Kevin Martin:

Injuries of unknown origin, including him having blood in his mouth and a chipped tooth and machines that were being used to help scan Randy’s bladder to see if he was having urinary retention, the wires to these machines were being held together by scotch tape.

Patrick Testin:

We have invited speakers here today…

Marisa Wojcik:

An April Senate Committee Hearing received testimony on the conditions of the Wisconsin Veterans Homes. Testimony painted a grim picture inside Union Grove and King, from conditions for staff…

Ellen Jante:

Some worked 16-hour shifts for three days in a row. We spoke with a nurse who had worked 32 days in a row.

Marisa Wojcik:

To the conditions for residents.

Laurie Miller:

He has wet himself in the bed several mornings in the past few years because no one comes to help when he puts his call button on. Now he says he doesn’t want to go outside because he knows he won’t want to go back in.

Marisa Wojcik:

And pointed to leadership as the problem.

Doug Womack:

Oversight and change of management coming out of Madison and at the local location, things started to deteriorate.

Marisa Wojcik:

But these ordeals are contrary to the results of a new satisfaction survey conducted by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Results show residents at King and Union Grove rate the facilities care an average of 8.1 out of 10 and nearly 75% of respondents said they were “never unhappy with care.”

James Bond:

I wanted to hear firsthand from the members on the ground, the members and the staff in the facilities. And so that was a good start. And so I’m going to put together a workgroup that’s going to analyze the results, come up with some recommendations and that will help us, you know, put together a path for moving forward.

Marisa Wojcik:

WDVA Secretary-designee James Bond was appointed by Governor Tony Evers in January. He pushes back against claims saying the homes are in crisis.

James Bond:

Any kind of allegation with respect to our homes, those are things that we investigate, we follow up, we make sure that we correct whatever it is that needs to be corrected. I also want to say to those members that I want to hear directly from you. If you have concerns that you feel are not being addressed, you know, reach out to me.

Marisa Wojcik:

The department notes competition from private facilities, a declining veteran population, and staffing as key challenges.

Diane Lynch:

I happen to be involved with the board on long-term care in this state and we often talk about some of the exact same challenges that our state veterans homes have: staffing challenges. Some of them have things that happen that bring them a citation that’s horrible, but we’re human beings. But they’re not in the paper and they’re not sitting here today because they’re private sector, they don’t have the word “veteran” and it’s not newsworthy.

Kevin Martin:

So if their stressors are the same across the industry, why is Union Grove ranked in the bottom five in this country? That’s illogical.

Marisa Wojcik:

The state budget approved funding for a study into all three Wisconsin Veterans Homes.

James Bond:

And the purpose was is so that we can look at long-term planning of our facilities, look at the future of how those facilities might look and look at our current operations.

Marisa Wojcik:

Senate committee members are hoping more can be done.

Patrick Testin:

And I would hope that one of the biggest takeaways in all of this is that I think every member on the committee is all in agreement that we want an audit. I think that gives us an opportunity, if we go through the audit committee, to find long-term solutions. But in the meantime, there are clearly issues that need to be addressed that we can address here in the short-term.

James Bond:

If the legislature decides that they want to have an audit so they can take a better look at our operations, our financial situation, and offer, you know, suggestions on how we might be able to improve, I think that would be a good thing. But as I mentioned, I have nothing to hide and I welcome an audit.

Marisa Wojcik:

For “Here & Now,” I’m Marisa Wojcik.

Frederica Freyberg:

Governor Tony Evers made a statewide sweep of visits to childcare centers this week as he announced a special session of the legislature to address worker shortages. Evers wants to use $1 billion of a $4 billion budget surplus to shore up childcare centers, expand paid family leave, give more to higher education, and put money towards supporting high-demand jobs in healthcare and education.

Tony Evers:

Truly addressing these longstanding challenges must include efforts to ensure workers who are already working and are part of the workforce can remain in the workforce.

Frederica Freyberg:

The special session called for September 20 was met with predicted derision from legislative leaders with Assembly Speaker Robin Vos calling it a stunt, “nothing more than a rehash of Tony Evers’ tax and spend budget. Democrats at the federal level, he says, tried extending recklessly to help the workforce and all we got for it was crushing inflation. We are not going to do that in Wisconsin.”

Vos further says Governor Evers’ proposal to give childcare providers a one-time payment of $365 million is a 12-month patch to match what they lost through the federal stimulus plan, calling it unsustainable. People who study Wisconsin’s childcare and its ramifications on the workforce, families and children, would like to see that funding patch, however, fearing the collapse of the industry in short order. We sat down with Alejandra Ros Pilarz, UW Madison assistant professor in the School of Social Work. We started by asking her to describe how bad the shortage of licensed childcare providers is and the implications of that.

Alejandra Ros Pilarz:

When we think about access to childcare, we think about a few different things. One is just geographic proximity, like, can families — how far do they have to drive to get to a nearby childcare provider. We know in Wisconsin the geographic access really varies a lot across the state, so in urban areas, it tends to be a little better. But in rural areas, there’s about 3.4 children per regulated childcare slot. So that’s what we call a childcare desert when there’s 3 or more kids per childcare slot. That suggests in rural areas, especially, but in other parts of the state, too, that there’s — families lack these geographic access to childcare. They have to drive really far to get to a nearby provider. But the second key piece is affordability, and so even if you have providers who are near you, you might not be able to afford them. So in Wisconsin, childcare for an infant in the center costs $13,500 a year. That is unaffordable for many families. And so even when there is that spot available, if you have to pay $13,500 per year, you’re not going to be able to afford that.

Frederica Freyberg:

Who does this shortage hurt the most?

Alejandra Ros Pilarz:

Obviously, it most directly impacts children and parents and childcare providers, but it also has ramifications for the labor market, for the economy, and so ultimately all of us. And so for — let me kind of walk you through how it impacts different children and parents. So for children, there’s a wealth of research that high quality early care education, or childcare, is really critical to their development. So it matters for not just their short-term education, academic performance, but also longer-term children who have high quality early education go further in school and have higher earnings as adults. They are healthier and so all of these things, all of those benefits to kids pay off to society as well. And then for parents, parents need childcare to be able to work. And so if they are working less or not working at all, that obviously impacts their earnings, typically mothers’ earnings. The family’s economic well-being because they have sacrificed income and also impacts the economy because you have productive workers who are stepping out of the labor force and businesses who can’t find workers or who have lots of turnover.

Frederica Freyberg:

How did we get to this place where parents can’t afford quality care and providers can’t afford to pay their staff really living wages?

Alejandra Ros Pilarz:

Childcare providers, those who care for the kids, are the most important ingredient of childcare, obviously. Right? So this is critical to high quality care. In order to do that, we need to have few kids per teacher so that teachers can have these high-quality interactions with kids. And so you need a lot of labor, a lot of people to provide that care. So in a childcare center, the majority of the costs go towards labor, towards hiring these highly trained teachers do this work, and so whenever you want to increase teachers’ wages, or you retain them, you are increasing your overall budget by a lot, your overall costs by a lot, and so childcare centers have no option but to pass that on to parents because without additional public investment. So you have parents who really can’t afford to pay more and childcare centers who want to pay their staff more but can’t raise wages at the risk of losing parents.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you think that the governor’s call for a billion dollars investment toward this problem is the right fix?

Alejandra Ros Pilarz:

So it’s absolutely critical to maintaining the status quo. So right now, we do have a childcare shortage. The system is not functioning well and the funding that the governor is calling for is to maintain the current funding. If we don’t invest more, the pandemic relief funds that are currently keeping the system sort of stable are going to go away. And so there’s this real fear that when that money runs out, that the system is going to destabilize and prices are going to go up, parents are going to have to have fewer options for care, workers are going to leave, and so that money is absolutely critical to having that not happen and maintaining where we are right now, but in the longer-term, we do need more substantial public investments in childcare in order to improve the system. To make things better. So that parents don’t have to spend 20% of their income on childcare. So that teachers can make more than $13 on average an hour, and so we need additional investments to make improvements in the system, but the funding that has been proposed by Governor Evers is critical to maintaining things where we are right now.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Professor Pilarz, thanks very much.

Alejandra Ros Pilarz:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade last year, the debate around abortion has scrambled the political landscape. States like Wisconsin have seen abortion laws passed 150 years ago back on the books. Over the next three weeks, “Here & Now” will be examining the new debate surrounding abortion presenting you with the viewpoints of those who have utilized abortion, those who want to keep it illegal, and those in the medical community advocating for their patients. Tonight, we begin with the voices of women who have had an abortion for, as they would describe it, completely ordinary reasons. They are speaking up now in an effort to normalize the conversation around abortion as healthcare. “Here & Now” senior political reporter Zac Schultz produced this story, letting the women tell their story in their own words.

Tosha Kowalski:

I was 26. I had just gotten out of a relationship, a long relationship with somebody for four years and that was actually the father.

Sara:

I was a full-time student at UW-Eau Claire going for political science. Really loving school. I was a single mom. I had a beautiful, amazing little son, working two jobs.

Dana Pellebon:

So I had sex. It was protected sex. And I actually didn’t know that the condom had broken. And four or five weeks later, I was pregnant.

Tosha Kowalski:

I knew immediately. I would say the day after. I just felt it in my body.

Dana Pellebon:

At first, I just thought I was sick, but I was with a really good friend of mine and she was like, “Mmm, maybe you’re pregnant.” I was like, “There’s no way that can happen. I’ve only had sex once and it was protected. It’s fine.” Well, it wasn’t fine.

Sara:

I immediately knew. A lot of people say it was a hard decision and I absolutely respect that and I’m sure that it is for some, but this was the single easiest decision I have ever made as a parent.

Dana Pellebon:

And at that point, I was not in a position where I wanted another child. It wasn’t something that I felt fit into my life and so I made the decision to terminate the pregnancy.

Sara:

Minneapolis is where I ended up going and getting an abortion. You have to take an entire day to go get the abortion. They tell you to take the whole day. So I got childcare for my child. I don’t even remember how I scraped up the money, to be honest, it was so long ago. It was $600, though, I remember that, because I remember it was a significant amount of money for me to come up with.

Tosha Kowalski:

I was shocked to find out that my insurance covered it and also very, very grateful. I thought that was just, I mean, so awesome because it’s healthcare. You know?

Dana Pellebon:

And if I remember correctly, it was a couple hundred dollars. I think some of it was covered by insurance, but not all of it.

Tosha Kowalski:

It was hard for me to be there at the actual clinic because, you know, I was 26. You saw all walks of life in that room. You saw young children. You saw older women. You saw couples.

Dana Pellebon:

There was a wide range of people, different ages, different races.

Sara:

I went through it. I am so grateful, so grateful for abortion providers and the nurses, the entire staff. I remember this lady, she was like, “Just hold my hand when it hurts, just squeeze my hand,” and I remember thinking, “Oh, boy, I’m going to break her finger. I’m probably going to break her fingers,” but everyone was just so great and kind.

Dana Pellebon:

And when I woke up, I was in a chair. They gave me some juice and some crackers, and what I noticed was that I felt great. I felt great. So I went to the hotel, ordered some food, and felt an enormous sense of relief and felt — I thought that I was going to feel all these sad feelings and that it was going to be all of this stuff that was happening, but instead, I had my Chicken Dijonnaise from the Weary Traveler. I remember because it was, like, my favorite dish at the time, and watched TV and really just felt good for the first time in about two months. And felt very much at ease and at peace with my decision at that point.

Tosha Kowalski:

I called my sister immediately when I got out of the clinic. I got into the car. I called her. And she just started bawling and she’s like, “I’m not crying because you got an abortion. I’m crying because you didn’t think you could tell me beforehand,” and I just didn’t want to put that on her because…

Sara:

There are many feelings that women are going to have around this and I think it’s because we’re not talking about it enough.

Dana Pellebon:

There were a lot of mythos that were spread, especially amongst persons talking about the Black community, so things like Black women in poverty used abortion for birth control.

Tosha Kowalski:

People don’t talk about it. People do not talk about it. I was told not to talk about it after I told my mom. I was told never to tell my father. I was like, why? I’m not ashamed. I don’t feel bad about this. It was a choice that I made and I would make it again a hundred times. I wouldn’t do anything different.

Sara:

My story is the majority of the story. 75% of the women that do this are from low income. I was low income when I did it. 60% are in their 20s. I was in my 20s. Almost 60%, 59 to 60% are already parents. You know, this is a parental decision that they’re making. I was already a parent. And that’s the majority of the stories.

Dana Pellebon:

I don’t think that I told anyone publicly until probably five or six years ago. At that point, I hadn’t told very many people because I don’t walk around telling people what I do at my doctor’s office. So when I did decide to disclose, it was a political choice to be able to say publicly, this is a choice that I made and it’s an okay choice.

Sara:

I think when we’re trying to tell our stories, the scariest thing is other people’s reaction. How are they going to react to this? What are they going to think about me?

Tosha Kowalski:

At this festival that I was at this past weekend where I was just making so many great connections and this one woman asked me if I was a mom and I chose to respond with, “No, I had an abortion,” and she said, “I love that that’s how you phrased it because it’s, like just because it’s like, an active choice to not be a mom.”

Sara:

It became easier and actually really empowering, too, to talk about it, because almost every time when I would talk about it and say, “Hey, I had an abortion,” you know, if you were in a conversation, you could walk away and somebody would come up to you afterwards and say, “Thank you so much for talking about that. I also had an abortion. I could never do what you just did.”

Dana Pellebon:

I think that was one of the barriers for people is like, I’m going to hate myself forever. I don’t hate myself forever. I’m actually very proud of myself for making a good choice for myself and my body.

Tosha Kowalski:

There’s no reason for me to get an abortion except for the fact that I wanted one. I didn’t want a kid. You know, I think sometimes people have — like that’s not a good enough reason, but it is. I mean, that is. That is. That is a great reason. I made the decision for me and my unborn child that that’s not the life I wanted.

Sara:

My abortion allowed me to find the love of my life, to get married, to have more children when we were ready. We have three children now. There was never a point where I had to sit my children down and say, just so you know, Mommie’s had an abortion. This is what abortion is. They’ve grown up with it and knowing it. So it’s normal. It’s normal in our house.

Dana Pellebon:

I was born two years after Roe v. Wade came into pass, so I always lived in a world where abortion was legal and to think that we had erased 50 years of progress was astounding and it was sad and it was angering.

Sara:

Because the women before us fought so hard to get us there. And we lost it. So…

Tosha Kowalski:

I’m not crying because of the actual — you know, I don’t think about my abortion often, to be honest, but I do think about all of the people who don’t have the right to choose and, like, aren’t lucky enough to get to choose the direction of their life.

Dana Pellebon:

There’s so many barriers that were put in place because people want to impose their morality on other people.

Sara:

I think the only way to fix that is for more of us to talk about it, to say it, to say “it’s normal,” to say “I had an abortion.” You love somebody who had an abortion. You probably love a lot of people who had an abortion.

Dana Pellebon:

It empowers them to let them know that there’s a different narrative that is out there, that there are people that are really okay with the choice. Even those who grew up being told that it wasn’t okay. It is an okay choice.

Tosha Kowalski:

I want it to become part of everyday language, I guess. For me, not for everybody. Like if I can help other people talk about it or feel okay about a decision that they made, that I want to do that.

Sara:

I’ll continue to share mine, but the more of us, the better, right? We have an army. Let’s start using our voices together and they can’t shut us up anymore.

Frederica Freyberg:

Next week on “Here & Now,” a report on a woman who decided against having an abortion with the help of one of the dozens of centers across Wisconsin whose mission it is to prevent women from terminating their pregnancies. You can also tune into a special series of reports on Wisconsin Public Radio, looking at abortion regulations since the state passed its original abortion ban titled, “How We Got Here: Abortion in Wisconsin since 1849.”

For more on this and other issues facing Wisconsin, visit our website at PBSwisconsin.org and then click on the news tab. That’s our program for tonight. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a good weekend.

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Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.