‘Impending Crisis’ Seen in Geriatric Care for Baby Boomers

[babylonsister]

‘Impending Crisis’ Seen in Geriatric Care for Baby Boomers
By John Reichard, CQ HealthBeat Editor


Low wages and poor training for health care workers responsible for treating the elderly — ranging from doctors to nursing home aides — are contributing to a looming crisis in medical care as 78 million baby boomers approach their retirement years, said a study released Monday by the Institute of Medicine.

Baby boomers “will face a health care work force that is too small and woefully unprepared to meet their specific health needs,” the institute said in a news release announcing the study. “More training is required for dog groomers and manicurists than direct-care workers in many parts of the country.”

Heading off the crisis is going to require “bold” initiatives right away to improve training and salaries, according to the report. Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers should boost payments for care of the elderly to draw more health care workers into the field, the report recommended.

Health care lobbies issued statements Monday saying the report shows the need for Congress to act on legislation addressing physician payments and steering move caregivers into specialized care for the elderly.

Although shortages of health care workers loom in other fields of medicine, the study said the problem is worse in geriatric care because it attracts fewer specialists and is troubled by a high rate of turnover among so called direct-care workers — nurse aides and home health aides, for example. The study noted, for example, there are only about 7,100 physicians certified in geriatrics — the medical specialty covering diseases and problems of the elderly — or one for every 2,500 older Americans. Meanwhile 71 percent of nurses’s aides change their jobs each year and up to 90 percent of home health aides leave their jobs within two years.

more...

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=hbnews-000002703277

[Rydz777]

1. Good post. We are not very good at dealing with crises until

we are looking them in the eye. This is one that is bound to happen, and to fix the supply of health care workers (especially geriatric specialists) will take time. The demand is going up- that's a given - and if the supply doesn't go up, expect long waits for appointments, many disappointments, and maybe eventually triage based on age and condition.

[flashl]

2. A start, stop private equity companies like the Carlyle Group from buying and gutting nursing homes.

[Stinky The Clown]

3. Cat food? Hemlock? ....... Cat fod? Hemlock? .......

[morningglory]

4. You know how old people in Europe, in some pictures we see are always

sitting outside after working in the family garden? Or sitting on the stoop watching children play. Cheeks pink and beautifully healthy, though weathered. With their berets on. Well, there was an old black man near here, who had a gorgeous garden of greens. He had an old metal lawn chair out on the edge of his garden. He sat there every day, and I looked forward to seeing him out there. He was a thing of beauty. Also, I know his wife would have a delicious pot of greens and steaming cornbread ready by noon, that he could have been anticipating. Last Fall he did not show up in his chair, and no greens came up. I still miss him when I drive by. I went to visit an elderly neighbor friend in a nursing home recently. There she sat with a little tv and one end table to keep her worldly possessions in. A view of an asphalt parking lot spread before her window. She was full of life, intelligence, and loving humor. She died last week. While I was visiting her, I was thinking how I want to die on my way out to the garden, maybe as I imagine the black man with the green garden did. She had given her house over to her children, and asked to go into the home. Why can't we turn the house over to whatever descendents are in need of a place and go sit on the front stoop or porch swing. Tend a little vegetable garden and a flower garden and just sit there till the grim reaper takes us? Why do we have to be tended to like babies for 15 years? I think with climate crisis it would be a favor to the world if we could go out like the black man. I don't know, maybe he is sitting in a nursing home right now with a little tv and an end table, who knows? I am just saying for me, when I feel the end near, I would like to be shot by the secret service at the white house fence, a hangman's noose in my hand...

[Manifestor_of_Light]

5. Lots of old people don't want to turn the house over to the kids.

Because they are greedy and they think they will live forever. My mom wouldn't go in a nursing home, so she stayed in her house and vegged. Until she begged me to come get her. I took care of her for three months at home before she died. Because I had a shred of decency left in spite of the way she had treated me.

I had to pry the house out of her cold dead hands, practically. Just because something was not being used was not a good enough excuse to give it to someone who could use it. She was all about possessing things and NOT using them. Sad.

[Thothmes]

7. Why should they

It is their property. The earned it, they should be able to use it as they see fit. When you get to be that age, I doubt that you would be willing sell off all of the things that you held dear in your adult life and merrily walk into what passes for a nursing home.

[bemildred]

6. More money for HMOs, eh?

All those old people need lots of "health care" before they die.