The point I am trying to make across is every worker deserves a great salary, no doubt, but when you don’t have a degree, your choices become very restricted; being an aide has to turn into a quick cash kind of deal, I do what I want the job. Many so-called domestic workers are seniors themselves who many had not had a chance to go to college or have a better education and now are flooding the home health care industry with their so call experience by taking care of their own family members.
Every time we onboard a new client, I hear a complaint about they don’t want and are tired of people coming to their homes and not just stealing from them as well as they stay on the phone most of their working hours time. Some aides are afraid to call 911 when an emergency arises. Some are immigrants and are afraid to be taken in custody, unable to explain what’s going on with their patients/clients. They are simply unprepared for a lack of professional experience and training.
On the other hand, I also have great friends that at heart they think they are seeking what is best for their friends, and think that requesting a graduated geriatric case manager worker to assist with a friend’s daily needs, mental health issues, tidying up and grocery shopping and worked for $20.00 to $35.00 an hour that won’t be happening. Why? One would not make an effort to go to college for six years, finance and refinance and actually get in debt for the $20.00 to $35.00 an hour. To hire a nurse to supervise a client at the shower, turn in bed, observe how to perform bowl routine, assist the client with nebulizer and cough assist, copping the nurse requested $75.00 per hour for three days, without sleep in. To attend a home health care class will cost you around $1500.00 for three to six weeks course, including the hours you have to have to experience nursing home facilities.
This has to stop; your friend needs professional medical help at home, they need a home care attendant with Dementia care, or whatever their home care needs, they don’t need a geriatric case manager when there is a diagnosis of Dementia.
You are a good friend, but you should not intervene in what you think it should be. Your intentions are well placed; however reality, it isn’t every single family who can afford the $75.00 per hour, and health insurance also is known for put a break into paying for everything as well, to have health insurance paid for the services, there is have to have a diagnosis first, doctor’s order. Companionship for your parents is out-of-pocket expenses, not health-related charges. Your loved one is alone at home with dialysis needs, and health insurance has to apply. The aide is essential, so your loved one has the means to go to a dialysis center or at-home machines.
When a geriatric case manager crosses over to the private sector is because the salary can be much higher than he/she is making right now. A home health care aide struggles to make a living with $15.00, oftentimes is very demeaning where the geriatric case manager receives the praise and the home health care aide do the heavy lifting. There are situations where a home health care aide is expected to overperform and deliver for the $15.00.
One way we can stop this unbalance? Home healthcare aides need to have a college degree and or refreshed courses. Do you want to work with disabled individuals, seniors, or mental health patients, you have to have certifications training and be limited by its agency the number of times you check your phone; otherwise, you should be interacting with your disabled individual, senior or elderly patient and or client, all these should not be a problem if you were trained and certified. Certification and training are never enough to keep yourself in the job market. If you don’t have the means to go to college, workshops will help. You need to know how to interact with a patient with mental health issues. No one wants to pay for someone else to come to their home, sit down at their couch and talk on their phone. It’s about time to see a home health care aide as a professional, maybe the lowest medical professional in the healthcare spectrum, nevertheless a medical professional. Being an aide means being a professional caregiver, home health care aide, personal care assistant, and certified nurse aids.
There are no formal education credentials required to be an aide, which brings us to many immigrants and uneducated people trying to make quick cash without fully understanding the responsibility of being an aide. Is it the same to say that you are a nurse in your country? How about the country you are in right now?
Without education, you lose your ground for argumentation, you have no bases to prove a point, and the older you get without the diploma you need, you won’t have a chance in the job market, you will be pushed down by those who have the geriatric case manager degree.
