Jessie Carmichael: Pediatric shift nurses crucial for fragile children
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Every day, thousands of medically fragile children across Pennsylvania rely on the state’s pediatric shift nursing program to stay safe and healthy at home. Since 1993, this program has allowed these children to be cared for at home by skilled, professional nurses. It keeps families together, out of hospitals and facilities, and allows children to grow up where they are supposed to: at home.
But families that rely on this program are struggling. In the past 28 years, funding for this program has only been increased twice. Now, covid-19 and increased costs of living have made it so pediatric nursing providers cannot attract enough nurses to keep up with demand. The state has until June to increase funding for pediatric skilled nursing and ensure that these children and families are able to access care.
I have seen firsthand how low state funding for pediatric shift nursing has — even pre-covid — made it incredibly difficult for families to access the skilled nursing care they need for their medically fragile children. Nurses can earn more in wages in hospitals and nursing homes, and even in home care in neighboring states or in other state programs where they provide similar nursing services to adults.
Since covid, it has become even more of a struggle for families to access adequate pediatric nursing care for their children. We have gone from an average of 8.5% missed shifts pre-covid to 27.1% currently. That means at any given time, our medically fragile clients can’t even be 75% sure they will have a nurse that day. For them, that is the difference between being able to work, sleep, and care for themselves and other loved ones that day.
Many states have given federal covid relief funding to these programs so providers can offset the costs of additional PPE supplies and worker overtime, and so that nurses can earn increased hazard pay. But Pennsylvania has not allocated any increased federal covid funds to pediatric shift nursing. As this program is left behind, the children and families that need this care are left behind, too.
Nurses are being recruited to make three times more per hour giving vaccinations. They are leaving home care — or even health care altogether — because wages aren’t rising to meet the increased challenges they are facing being nurses during a pandemic. Unless the state opts to increase program funding by the end of June, nurses will continue to be attracted to jobs where they can earn more in wages, and families will continue to struggle to access the skilled nursing care that they and their medically fragile loved ones need.
Today, amid an ongoing pandemic, nurses are continuing to bleed out of an industry that already has been facing crippling workforce issues. As a result, neonatal intensive care units across the state are unable to discharge babies because there aren’t nurses available to accompany them home.
Families are desperate, and have reached the end of the line. What will happen when there are no more nurses available to care for children at home? Would you be willing to put your child in a full-time facility or nursing home?
“Staying safe at home” has truly taken on a new meaning in the past year. For many of us, this has by and large meant making small but meaningful adjustments to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe. But for thousands of families that require nursing care, it has meant much more than that.
I ask our state lawmakers to think about our youngest and most medically fragile Pennsylvanians as they make budget decisions over the next few weeks. I urge them to support these families and by investing more funding in pediatric home care nursing.
Jessie Carmichael is manager of Preferred Home Health Care & Nursing Services, McCandless.