For the last four years, Arizona Interfaith Network (AIN) organizations have included long-term care issues in their individual and house meetings. AIN has kept the subject of long-term care before the eyes of the Governor and the Legislature through legislation and meetings at all levels. The mission is create a long term care system where there is good quality of life for those who need care, their family caregivers, and the paid personnel who provide care.
Nearly everyone in our organizations has been impacted in one way or another by the long-term care industry. Our stories include:
- the housebound husband of one of our members who had six caregivers come to watch over him during a five-day period when she went away for respite
- a woman who brought her mentally ill sister here from the Midwest and could not find qualified caregivers for her
- the husband of a member of one of our churches who was dropped while in a nursing home because the caregiver was not properly trained to lift him
- a member's father who in the last months of his life was not kept clean by his caregiver
This problem of inadequate long-term care will only increase. In the year 2003, 17% of our population was over age 60. By the year 2020, 26% of Arizona's population will be over 60. Many of them and other physically and mentally disabled adults and children (23% receiving care in 2003 under Arizona's long-term care system were under the age of 19) will need the services of a stable and competent long-term care workforce. 50-100% turnover rates of caregivers are not uncommon in the industry and 20% vacancy rates are normal.
Not only are we facing a shortage of competent caregivers, we are facing a financial crisis. Some people who receive long-term
care are able to pay. Many are not, which is resulting in a monumental problem for the state's Medicaid program, AHCCCS. Today,
4% of all people covered by AHCCCS are in the Arizona Long Term Care System (ALTCS), accounting for 27% of AHCCCS's total expenditures.
On March 16, 2004, Governor Janet Napolitano issued an Executive Order, "Aging 2020," to address the aging population in
Arizona. As a part of that order, she appointed the Citizens' Workgroup on the Long Term Care Workforce to develop strategies
to tackle the long-term care crisis facing the state. These strategies would include but not be limited to:
- Improved quality of care for people requiring long term care through
standardizing training and job titles, certification, and standardizing data collection and methodologies
- Better retention of workers by raising the image of the caregiver through public education, refining recruitment procedures, and providing competitive wages and benefits like affordable health insurance and child care, ongoing training and creating career ladders
- Address the continuing financial impact of long-term care to individuals and government through exploring affordable long-term care insurance for state employees and other citizens
