Benton Spirit Community News

Monday, April 16, 2007

My mother can’t walk, so I take care of her. When I say take care of her, I mean that I cook for her, bathe her, I clean up her place, I do her laundry and run her errands.

It is a life choice that many of us will probably face in the next few years, as our state’s population gets older and requires more attention. Some of us will have to quit our jobs and stay home with a loved one. Others will have to rely on the work of a home health care worker.

Before I started taking care of my 74-year-old mom, I took care of other people, because my job is as a home health care worker. I took care of Phil, a 59-year-old who recently died from a brain tumor. I took care of Jim and so many others.

But while I have helped to take care of others for the last 15 years, it has been increasingly hard to take care of myself. That puts me in the same boat as many other home health care workers.

I am among the more than half a million people in Michigan without health insurance. In fact, at least 28 percent of home health care workers don’t have health insurance, according to a survey of 600 workers done by the Feldman Group. Another 33 percent of home care workers have not been able to see a doctor due to finances.

For me, it means the shoulder I injured in a car accident two years ago can’t fully recover. My doctor bills are as high as the Mackinac Bridge.

For my profession, it means that there is about a 35 percent turnover rate in the home health care field. It’s hard to provide 24-hour care for someone and not be able to care for yourself.

What that could mean for you is that the workers that will be needed to take care of your mother, father or aunt may not be here when you need them most. Michigan’s elderly population is expected to expand by 52 percent during the next 25 years, according to a 2003 report by the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute.

I am proud that I am in a position to take care of my mother, and I am proud of having worked in the home health care field for the last 15 years. It is time that those who provide care got a little care themselves, however. Insurance needs to be available and affordable to everyone.

--James Busby, a home health care worker, lives in St. Joseph.