Nursing homes became an elder care flashpoint during the Covid-19 pandemic, and while some of the problems were brought on by the virus, others reflect longstanding issues and a lack of regulatory oversight, industry stakeholders told members of Congress this week.<\/p>\n Nursing home workers, policy experts and relatives of people who died were among those who testified before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, which held a hearing on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Dr. David Grabowski, professor of healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School, described \u201cdire conditions\u201d in nursing homes in 2020. The pandemic \u201clifted the veil on nursing home care in America,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Grabowski shared research with the committee concluding that Covid-19 outbreaks in nursing homes <\/span>were largely a function of where in the country a nursing home was located versus other specifics about the facility.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThis does not suggest there was nothing that could have been done to prevent Covid outbreaks,\u201d Grabowski said. \u201cRather, it suggests that policymakers needed to adopt a system-level approach to address this problem,\u201d Grabowski said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Adelina Ramos, a <\/span>certified nursing assistant at a nursing home in Rhode Island, described the conditions in the nursing home in the spring of 2020. She recounted to the committee that while working with residents who <\/span>couldn\u2019t eat, drink, get out of bed or go to the bathroom without help, and who required oxygen to be changed every 15 minutes, she had to \u201cmake impossible choices about which residents to help\u201d because the facility was understaffed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Ramos is now a member of a nursing union, which she attributes to improved working conditions, including paid sick leave and better health insurance. But she said it\u2019s up to the government to look at this struggling industry and provide oversight.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe want guidelines to ensure that we have safe staffing levels more often,\u201d Ramos told the committee.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe majority of nursing home workers are women and people of color and we are often called unskilled and uneducated,\u201d Ramos said. \u201cOur jobs are devalued and it\u2019s disgraceful that after two-and-a-half years of a daily pandemic we are still treated this way and we are fed up with the lack of respect from nursing home owners and lawmakers, so our workforce change needs to happen now.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/medcitynews.com\/uploads\/2021\/02\/GettyImages-1256717949-600x400.jpg\")
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