Trades/Construction
RANCHO RESORT
MAINTANANCE POSITION Health Care
Sierra Tucson
Eating Disorders Program Coordinator General
A1 Communications
Cable Techs

A warning bell rang for Tucson last month when an assisted-living home was punished over its poor care of an elderly woman ("Assisted-living home cited in neglect of woman, 87" — March 26).

This tragic event illustrates how the entire caregiver community teeters on the brink of breakdown due to lack of adequate training and adequate staffing.

However, while the state duly took this facility to task, the punishment failed to address the underlying problems at the root of such incidents.

After decades of declining numbers and quality, the caregiver employment pool puts the entire industry under tremendous strain. Most facilities operate understaffed, and employees lack essential areas of training.

We once called upon highly trained RNs to perform caregiver duties. However, decreasing reimbursement and plummeting standards have resulted in nursing duties being relegated to nursing assistants or those with even less training.

In Arizona, basic caregivers are required to undergo only 36 hours of training. Nursing assistants must complete 120 hours of occupational education, but dog trainers and manicurists receive at least 600 hours of training before working.

With such a lack of educational standards, long-term-care employers hire whomever they can find to fill these positions. Many caregivers are overstressed, under-rewarded single working mothers who hold down multiple jobs to support their families.

And the problem is getting worse. We have an exploding population of citizens over the age of 80, and the baby boomer generation is turning 60.

Caregiving is the country's fourth-fastest-growing job, but facilities already experience 32 percent job vacancies on a daily basis.

However, this dire situation can be turned around with time and effort. We can reduce turnover and improve the quality of the employment pool if we as a community invest in better training and higher standards for these important positions.

We at the Direct CareGiver Association, a Tucson-based nonprofit, provide 200 hours of occupational education and job placement. Employers of our graduates have experienced both an increase in retention rates and improvement in employee competence.

To improve the quality of caregivers in our community, the association has developed its own training facility and scholarship fund.

Last year we raised more than $250,000 to support caregiver training in Tucson. Over the last four years we've graduated 180 students from our program, and more than 86 percent of them are working at caregiver jobs in our community.

But we can't do this alone. Our country and our local community must become more proactive in addressing the caregiver crisis. If we are only taking notice and reacting when these worst-case tragedies occur, then we will never solve the underlying problems and are doomed to repeat those tragedies again and again.

Our elders deserve better than that.