Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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Mourn Dead Essential Workers on Labor Day& Blame President

August 30, 2020

3000 Essential Workers Have Died on Front Line Worldwide

Labor Day is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. Instead, we mourn front line workers’ unnecessary deaths. Essential health care workers who have died worldwide of COVID -19 are thought by Amnesty International to be about 3000 and counting.

 More than a month ago, Kaiser Health News put the US total at almost 600. The report said, “The overall figure is likely to be a significant underestimate due to under-reporting, while accurate comparisons across countries are difficult due to differences in counting.”

US Essential Worker Left Unprotected By PPE

“Health and essential workers have played an extraordinary role in this pandemic. But those so dedicated workers are often left unprotected by governments and systems that have failed to supply them with enough personal protective equipment (PPE), supplies, and resources to do their jobs.”( trash bags they got from FEMA, as you can see)

In April alone, there were an estimated 27 COVID-19-related health worker deaths in the USA, 106 in the UK, and 180 in Russia, with tens of thousands of infections. The actual numbers are probably much higher.

Although COVID Take it’s the biggest toll on the elderly, nurses, nursing students, and nurses aides at hard-hit nursing homes caring for the elderly, die young of COVID. 

I am a social worker and have worked on the social work/nurse team, with nurses & nurses aides for 40 years, so this really matters to me as it should to all of us.

Trump Failed to Use Defence Production ACT to Make PPE

According to Kaiser this month it was over 900 and counting in the US. And as is so often said- it did not have to be this way. If Trump had used the  Defence Production Act to get PPE made the PPE and distributed to essential workers, they would not have died. As cases mount in the south and the west where I live, lifesaving PPE- N-95 masks, gloves, gowns are not adequate although Trump keeps giving more dubious information that every worker had what they needed. Poor government preparation or actions, government missteps, and overburdened health care created this travesty

Mourn Essential Workers on Labor Day

So on labor day offer a thank you, a prayer,  light a candle, create art  -burn a stick of sage as the American Indians do -all in their memory – a ritual of mourning for these essential workers who did not have to die because the richest nation in the world could not give them simple protection.

Contact Your Legislator After Labor Day

Then contact your local legislator about the lack of PPE that the government is not sending to save another nurse, bus driver, care providers, doctor, policeman, social worker, firefighter who offered themselves up for us and died for our Presidents’ sins.

 

 

Filed Under: Blog, COVID-19 Emergency Plan, Covid-19 mixed messaging, COVID-19 Webinar, COVID19 Deaths Essential worker, Covis-19 Services, Defence Production ACT, Essential Workers deaths, Labor Day Mourn Deaths of Workers, PPE, PPE and Essential Workers, PPE Essential Workers, PPE not ordered by Feds, Trump Administration, Trump's failure to order masks, Trump's lack a federal response Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, COVID_19 Deaths Labor Day, Deaths Of Essential Workerss, Mourn Essential Workers Labor Day, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Nurse's aides Deaths of COVID, nurses death of COVID, PPE for Essential Workers, Trump Administration, TRUMP ADministration ordering PPE

Dear Governor Newsome – Don’t Sentence Frail Elders To Ca. Nursing Homes Wrenching Them from Free Loving Family Caregivers!

June 18, 2020

Dear Governor Newsome :

I am on the board of the Health Project Center in Santa Cruz, County that operates the MULTI-PURPOSE SENIOR SERVICES PROGRAM (MSSP program ). and CAREGIVER RESOURCES PROGRAM (CRC)  in both Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties.

KEEP THESE NURSING HOMES CERTIFIED SENIORS IN THE CHEAPER COMMUNITY

I am writing to support these programs and implore the governor not to cut their funding. These senior programs were created to keep people out of expensive nursing homes in the 1970s and keep them in the cheaper and nurturing community. By cutting MSSP and CRC the state will only accrue more debt by spending more money to fund now COVID -19 disease-ridden nursing homes. These nursing home certified beneficiaries who are the frailest and poorest of our elderly population. They are kept in the community by MSSP where they receive food services, socialization, and therapy. Their family caregivers receive respite.

Giving these caregivers respite can be the difference between caregiver burnout due to unpaid relentless 24-hour care of a loved one. Burnout ends in placement in nursing homes. But with COVID -19 still rampaging many cannot even get in.

 CAREGIVER RESOURCE CENTER  KEEPS FRAIL SENIORS IN FREE FAMILY CARE VS NURSING HOME PLACEMENT $80,000 a year 

Respite to caregivers to stop inappropriate placement in nursing homes is one of the main functions of the Caregiver Resources Centers in California,  which needs its funding kept intact by the governor. The Center provides support to families caring for loved ones with cognitive impairments such as Alzheimer’s Disease, making referrals to caregiver counseling, support groups, local caregiver service, and giving small respite grants. Without the caregiver falling apart, which the Caregiver Resource Center stops, once again, the older nursing home certified client will just end up being forced to trying to get into a nursing home at $80,000 a year, when the family caregiver was FREE.

 IF these programs are demolished by the governor and MSSP and CRC are axed out in a blood-spattered cut and these frail seniors will be dumped into California nursing homes where the state will spend needless money it does not have.

 

STATE WILL PAY $80,000 A YEAR PER PERSON FOR NURSING HOME PLACEMENT VS. $5000 FOR MSSP

These programs save the state money. Each of the MSSP clients is disabled enough to be eligible for nursing homes and poor enough to be eligible for MediCal. So instead of the

state paying $80,000 or $90,000 per person per year in a nursing home, the State pays only on average a little over $5,000 for the person to be in MSSP and nothing for the family caregiver. .This makes the cuts both fiscally wrong and mystifying.

 

 MSSP CUTS MAKE RECIPIENTS GO  TO NURSING HOMES WITH 0 TESTING, JUNK PPE THAT LOOKS LIKE  GARBAGE BAGS WITH HOLES

Seniors have borne the greatest share of death already from COVID-19, as over 50% of the dead in the US are now elders from coronavirus who lived in a nursing home rife with the virus. These MSSP participants, without the support of MSSP, will have to turn to nursing homes.  According to the House Select Committee on Nursing Homes a few days ago, these facilities do not have enough testing and personal protective equipment to stop the virus from spreading. They do not even have PPE and at CMS direction, FEMA has been sending out junk for PPE that looks like garbage bags with holes. This is what you would be sentencing these frail elders to with the scrawl of the governor’s seal.

 

 CRC CUTS SEND Frail ELDERS FROM FREE FAMILY CARE TO $80,000 YR NURSING HOMES

 You are sending these seniors from the loving care of their family to nursing homes with few beds, COVID-19 raging from one bed to the next bed, beds not 6 feet apart, and no

testing or PPE. All this while the state pays $80,000 or $90,000 per person per year in a nursing home when the State pays only on average a little over $5,000 for the person to be in MSSP.

CUTS TRAVESTY IN JUDGEMENT AND MORAL FISCAL BANKRUPT CHOICE 

 

I am a graduate of Berkeley with a master’s in SW in aging planning and community development and this is just planning for more state debt and more seniors dying in expensive, CMS FEMA and Federally caused, death traps called nursing homes.

Sincerely

Cathy Cress MSW

 

 Cathy  Cress
cressgcm@got.net
CressGCM Consult
https://cathycress.com/

Santa Cruz, Ca 95062

Filed Under: Adult children, Aging Family, aging family crisis, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Aging therapist, Blog, caregiver, Caregiver Burn Out, caregiver burnout, CAREGIVER RESOUCES, CMS & Nursing Home Policy, Coronavirus safety elders, Covid-19 Death Nursing Homes, CUTS to California Caregiver Resource Centers, Cuts To California MSSP, Free Family Caregiver, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, Infection Control Nursing Homes, MSSP cuts in California, nurse care manager, Nursing Home Deaths, Poor Nursing home staffing, PPE, PPE Nursing Homes, Skilled Nursing Facility, SNF death COVID-19 Tagged With: Aging advocate, aging life care manager, aging life or geriatric care manager, aging parent, California Senior Program Cuts, care manager, caregiver burden, caregiver burnout, case manager, CRC cuts IN CALIFORNIA, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Governor Newsome-Ca, MSSP cuts in California, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Stop Cuts to Frail Elder in California

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