YORK, Pa. — “It’s really two roads converging at the exact wrong time," said Zachary Shamberg, the President and CEO of The Pennsylvania Health Care Association.
Long term care facilities continue to deal with two main issues.
One is staffing shortages.
“We just don’t have enough workers in long term care to care for that aging population," said Shamberg. "This has been an issue long before the covid-19 pandemic. The past 19 months have really exacerbated and accelerated this issue.".
The second issue is vaccine hesitancy.
“There are many reasons for that hesitancy, and in many cases it differs based on geographic location," said Shamberg.
The vaccination rate among nursing homes throughout the commonwealth is 67%, just below the overall state average of 70%.
In licensed nursing and personal care homes, there have been a total of 16,413 cases of Covid-19 among employees at 1,634 facilities in all 67 counties.
“We hear many, many times there is hesitancy due to our workforce and infertility issues," Shamberg said. "There is an inherent distrust among many of our minority employees surrounding government mandated vaccines."
They also fear that a vaccine mandate might make staffing shortage even worse.
“If we’re going to do this, and we’re not going to provide a testing alternative, we need to be ready here in Pennsylvania to supplement our workers," said Shamberg.
According to a survey released by the Pennsylvania Health Care Association, the top four reasons facility administrators say employees have left their job is because of wages, burnout, Covid-19 safety concerns and reluctance to comply with vaccine mandates.