Home care families in Erie are feeling the strain of a growing caregiver crisis, driven by multiple factors including an aging population and wage concerns. A roundtable at the Blasco Library drew dozens of home care workers, families, and advocates \u2014 all hoping lawmakers would hear just how urgent the situation has become.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not just one dynamic \u2014 they are dynamic. They help with feeding, they help with my oral care, they help me get up every day, and they help me be a better person. I\u2019m not stuck in bed, I\u2019m not staring at a wall, and I don\u2019t have the stress of depending solely on my family members.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s Tyler, an advocate who became quadriplegic after a biking accident in 2015.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy life changed in an instant. I went from not needing to rely on a team to relying on one \u2014 and they\u2019re my team now.\u201d<\/p>\n
With fewer nurses entering the field \u2014 and many leaving \u2014 families say they\u2019re being left with dangerous gaps in care.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been in nursing for 27 years and I\u2019m not even making $20 an hour. I was making that 27 years ago. It doesn\u2019t add up, especially with the amount of work we do. Not necessarily with Tyler, but many nurses face serious challenges because we push ourselves to the limit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attendees say these issues require legislative action from both parties.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re building consensus on this because it affects every district. It\u2019s not a Republican or Democratic issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Advocates warn that time is running out for Pennsylvanians as more families lose access to the care they rely on every day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Home care families in Erie are feeling the strain of a growing caregiver crisis, driven by multiple factors…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[55506,60772,136,138,137,60771,45151,60773],"class_list":["post-130791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-aging-population","tag-caregiver-crisis","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-home-care","tag-nursing-shortage","tag-wage-concerns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}