LIMA, OH (WLIO) - Nursing home workers demand Governor DeWine listen to their voices.
This past year, Medicare ranked Ohio's nursing home industry as 39th in the U.S. in terms of quality. As a response, Governor DeWine created the Nursing Home Quality and Accountability Task Force to hear directly from nursing home residents and their loved ones about their experiences and issue a report of their findings by the end of the year. However, not one member of the task force works regularly in a nursing home, and given what they say are extreme working conditions - nursing home workers are angry as they feel they are being ignored.
"I actually represent 14 nursing homes, administrative organizer from Lima to Toledo. In a lot of our buildings right now the ratio for an STNA is one to almost twenty to twenty-five. It is ridiculous, it's unsafe right now for anyone. including the residents and the workers," stated Jennifer Anderson, administrative organizer for Carecore of Lima.
More than 35% of nursing facilities throughout the state are still experiencing staffing shortages, continuing a pattern that has long been established in Ohio.
"It's critical that workers are heard from in these conversations, and they're not a part of the conversations with this task force that's been developed. So, we are here to call out the hypocrisy of the nursing home task force with the exclusion of nursing home workers being a part of the conversation and having a guaranteed seat at the table," said Vanessa Dalesandro, union director.
The Nursing Home Quality and Accountability Task Force will be having a conference at the Wood County Senior Center in Bowling Green on Tuesday, March 28, and Ohio nursing home workers plan to continue to protest across the state.
