Stories tagged: "nursing homes"
The workforce crunch at skilled nursing homes and personal care facilities in Pennsylvania is having a spillover effect on hospitals, which are under strain from a 55% increase in COVID-19 patients since mid-November.
Low pay and high turnover have long been the reality for the ranks of direct care workers in home care settings and nursing homes. The pandemic has made it worse.
“She was no longer able to have family, visitors, friends visit her,” he said. “And she became a little depressed, so I knew that I had to do something to try to uplift her spirits.”
A state Health Department spokesperson acknowledged the goal is ambitious, since that likely involves testing more than 135,000 people every week.
Residents of nursing homes and personal care homes account for more than two-thirds of the state’s overall death toll of 4,624 — a higher proportion than in most other states.
