Paula Vereen

Home Health Care Worker
Bronx, NY

Ms. Vereen recently chaired a meeting of home health care workers

Paula Vereen

Good evening ladies. I'm glad that you joined me here this evening at our policy action group. I just want to ask you a question and the question is just about, How do you think that we can improve the quality of your work and the work that you provide to your patients?

Julia: One of the things that can be improved is better wages and health benefits. I believe that if we had better wages and health benefits to take care of our families we would have less on our minds to worry about while taking care of the clients.

Paula: What do you think the government can do?

Julia: I believe the government can provide more, can be a little bit easier on the Medicaid reimbursement rates. Right now as far as the home health aids are concerned the reimbursement rates are very low. A lot of the home health agencies are not represented by the union so it's very hard for us to get better reimbursement rates. The government concentrates more on nursing aid facilities and hospitals because they have representation. So it's really difficult for us to get the proper representation as far as the government is concerned. So maybe they can look more into the home health aid agencies in the city.

Linda: I think they could make it easier for the patients to get the supplies they might need such as wheel chairs, walkers, you know canes because sometimes it's a bit hard for them to be able to pay the money out of pocket to get the supplies that they need before Medicaid or whatever insurance they have can give them back the money. You know, it's very difficult sometimes to pay money out of your pocket to get your supplies and it's very needed because patients are living in buildings that don't have elevators most of the time and you know, it's hard to get up and down the stairs without a cane or something to help them.

Paula: What are some of the special issues dealing with the elderly being that a large population that you take care of are elderly people?

Anna: We are sometimes the only people they see for months at a time. We're the only outside communication these people have. And, we do a very good job and the wages are very low and they really do need us. And we need them. It's a beautiful thing to have people to need you and you need them and we as home health aids, we do our best for these people and we should be recognized for our good works - we should be appreciated. They should give us a little more wages so that we would be able to function more on our jobs.

Are things getting better or worse?

Anna: We are like on a standstill. We need to move up more. It's just that it's time for us to get what's due to us.

Paula: What is the home health aid's relationship with the families? How does it actually work all together?

Gail: Well, if the family is involved in the caretaking it works well but a lot of times the families are glad to see us so they can go. That's the bottom line. They're out. And they don't really care. I just appreciate my clients telling me that, "I don't know what I would have done if you weren't here." I mean just for somebody to appreciate you. And then there's a lot of them that will abuse you and because they are independent and they don't want to accept that they're sick so sometimes they strike out at us because they have nobody else. And then eventually we get to know one another and things seem to work well.

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