The Harvard Letter describes the mental illness of nursing home employees and the advantage that these money pits take of low wage earners, single mothers, and many immigrants.
Meanwhile who will keep this place alive in the next 20 years? Who? Generation X and Y don't give a crap about this money pit.
The workers talk about how cheap the place is, how hard it is working for Yuba and drink constantly while communicating with each other on social media about their distaste for the California Armenian Home. It is merely a job to them, they don't care about the patients.
Stop donating to this home, let them survive on Government funds and watch how the money intended for patients goes to the AACL (Armenian American Citizens League) Building which just went through a $500,000 face lift.
California Armenian Home Employees out drinking (as usual), they will hire CNA, and LVN/LPN so they don't have to pay the higher wages for an RN.
According
to Harvard School of Public Health researcher
Cassandra Okechukwu, the prevalence of depression is common among
low-wage nursing home workers -- who also experience higher levels of stress
than other workers.
"The high burden of
work-family stress and depression in this group has important public health
implications for the workers and their families as well as for the quality of
care delivered to nursing home residents," said Okechukwu.
452 workers, mostly women,
were surveyed to investigate the link between depression and stress at home and
work. Participants were asked about stressors such as financial hardships, lack
of food and whether they worried about work-related issues during non-work
hours. Investigators found that these stressors were double the rate in nursing
home workers than other professions.
According to the report,
nursing home workers are a growing part of the workforce who may face higher
rates of household food insufficiency, financial strain, and work-family
spillover. Among nursing assistants-the biggest work group in nursing homes,
and among the lowest paid-the proportion of women is estimated to be 80% to
90%; most are single mothers and are thus the primary wage earners for their
families. Nursing home workers are more likely to be recent immigrants who may
not be aware of or eligible for government benefits. A majority of these
low-wage earners are also members of racial/ethnic minority groups.
The implications are
serious.
Depression leads to
absenteeism and turnover among workers, which in turn translates to poorer care
for residents in direct care settings. Because improvement in care quality at
nursing homes is an important public health priority, reducing workers'
depressive symptoms and their associated effects may have positive results for
both workers and nursing home residents.
Food insufficiency is a
household-level stressor that has been associated with overweight, behavioral
problems, and poor mental health in children and adolescents. This has further
implications for obesity in this group because several studies have reported a
seemingly paradoxical relation between food insufficiency and obesity whereby
those who report food insufficiency also report obesity. My guess, people
resort to dollar meals at fast food restaurants, which is typically an
unhealthy choice.
Financial strain, food
insufficiency, and symptoms of depression were common in our multi-ethnic
sample of nursing home workers. For primary wage earners, household food
insufficiency was associated with tripled odds of depressive symptoms-the
leading cause of disability worldwide.
I have
often said that the resident experience starts with the employee experience.
And an employee cannot just be viewed in the context of how we know them at
work. Progressive organizations take the time to really know their employees.
And when they do, they uncover the real issues that are affecting the work
environment. They then seek to address them at the very least instilling
self-esteem in workers that can carry back to the home.
We talk about being culturally sensitive
to long-term care residents. It would seem we first need to do that with
employees.
http://assistedliving.about.com/b/2012/03/05/depression-common-among-low-wage-nursing-home-staff.htm
