Fewer nursing home services may be available to boomers if funding levels aren’t increased

By Susan Larson | The Daily Journal

Published Tuesday, April 17, 2007

If the state continues to underfund nursing homes the baby-boomer generation can expect fewer available beds than will be needed, John Zwiers, Broen Memorial Home administrator, said,

“Right now, state funding provides $18 a day less than needed to take care of residents,” Zwiers said. To provide residents with needed care, operations are funded by borrowing from the property (building and maintenance) fund. “You can only do that for so long and then other problems develop.”

A cost of living adjustment proposed for Minnesota nursing homes, though welcome, isn’t enough to increase wages and add staff, Zwiers said.

“Anything is nice,” he said, but we would have preferred the nursing home coalition’s request for 6 percent or 7 percent. We’re not understaffed, but we’re not able to staff at levels we’d like. We’d like to have more activities staff and more nursing staff. Staff wages aren’t what we’d like.”

If funding was where it should be, Zwiers said, staffing would include five more employees per day.

Dist. 10 Sen. Dan Skogen, DFL-Hewitt, who supported the increase, said it was time for the raise.

“I hope this increase will help them get their heads back above water,” he said. “Nursing homes have been underfunded for years.” (The state) has not tied base funding to the cost of inflation, so nursing homes have gone two years with a zero cost of living increase.”

It’s been more like four years, according to Zwiers’ calculations.

“Most occupations don’t go four years without a cost of living increase,” he said.

If it passes, about 80 percent of the 3.25 increase must go to wages, he said. The rest can be used for operating expenses.

Language in the House bill is close to the Senate’s, Dist. 10A Rep. Bud Nornes, R-Fergus Falls said.

“I wholeheartedly support anything that can be done for those who work at nursing homes and nursing homes in general,” Nornes said, calling an increase, “appropriate. (Nursing home employees) work hard and they work under stressful conditions. They do work most of us would find difficult.”