Perhaps providers haven’t let down their guard enough, but as of this writing, there hasn’t been panic whenever I’ve talked to them about coronavirus implications. Sure, there’s concern, but more than anything I’ve observed a determined, “We’ll get this done one way or another” attitude.
Still, one has had to marvel: How can provider staff members possibly juggle all the usual responsibilities, along with many new ones, with the COVID-19 crisis at hand? Especially with pre-existing staffing shortage pressures in play? It’s felt like a fragile house of cards could come down whenever and wherever the invisible menace decides to reveal itself.
American Health Care Association President and CEO Mark Parkinson told a national TV audience that the coronavirus crisis is “almost a perfect killing machine” and “perhaps the
greatest challenge in the history of our sector.” He could be right.
And since mid-March, the long-term care workforce has had to wage battle without family members and many outside helpers who often can ease staff burdens. It’s an appropriate move to block everyone but nonessential visitors, but let’s step back and realize just how much more difficult things have been for floor personnel and managers.
To whom will extra burdens and tensions go? To facility aides, nurses and other caregivers, of course. Everything always circles back to the concept that caregivers and aides have to pick up even more slack than usual.
There’s never been a more pressured time for employees to perform — or for their managers to recognize their value. Becoming “just like family” is an apt expression. In some ways, this scenario is an extension of those heroic stories we hear about facility staff in the path of a hurricane or flood, evacuating with their residents. Except this involves not fleeing danger but rather hunkering down and trying to keep the microscopic wolves outside the door.
Bravo to all the hard-working, dedicated caregivers out there, caring for other people’s elderly loved ones, even when their own might somehow come to be at risk.
Until this storm safely passes, and it eventually will, I leave you with some simple words with which to proceed: Remain staunch in your principles. Have courage. Be kind.
And always — always — keep up the good fight.
