Speaker: Alicia Hopkins
The current shortage of direct care workers and nurses impacts the lives of thousands of Ohioans.
Here's Alicia's Story.
Please introduce yourself in a few short sentences.
Alicia Hopkins: My name is Alicia and my pronouns are she and her and I live in Ohio and I have a physical and developmental disability and I'm an advocate for myself and others.
What waiver do you use to receive home and community based services?
Alicia Hopkins: So I use a waiver through the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities. I'm on the IO (Individual Options) waiver and I use agency providers. Um I wanted to say too that I've been on the Medicaid waiver and now I have a DD a DD waiver so I know both sides of what it's like with care in the care crisis.
What kinds of things do direct care workers help you with?
What is your life like when you have all of your care needs met?
Alicia Hopkins: So when I have all the care that I need, I'm happy and I'm thriving and I'm really being able to be in my community with others. And some of the things that my caregivers help me with, are different activities of daily living, such as bathing and dressing and things around my home. But also they help me in my community and help me with employment goals and just being able to participate like any other Ohioan in the community, going to the art museum and other places that I enjoy.
How has the direct care workforce crisis impacted you?
Alicia Hopkins: So I've been impacted by the care crisis in many ways. At first I was on a Medicaid waiver by the MyCare Ohio waiver and I had significant challenges challenges recruiting workers $12.96 an hour. I couldn't recruit anyone. Plus my managed care plan took many took many months to contract workers. I had one provider, I was trying to contract for 17 months. There's like really no transparency in Ohio with around care, The care crisis and um credentialing of workers. And so that was problematic. I was on a 200 day backup plan and went through an awful lot of abuse and harm because of the care crisis. And um I actually finally got a waiver through the County Board of Developmental Disabilities after many months and fighting and everything because it came down to the point that I was in a dangerous situation as a result of the care crisis. And so I got a waiver through the County board of Developmental Disabilities and I found that even with that just many agencies were um understaffed and so some of them were combating their staffing issues by working workers 72 to 96 hours on my case and with no breaks, no sleep. And they were violating labor laws but it was causing me to be subjected to abuse and harm as well on the DD side So it's been a really long road for me and there's been significant challenges finding care recruiting providers because of the low wages but also too um just you know, there's a lot of red tape in Ohio's health care system. But to survive all this, I've done, I've painted about 25 feet of art interviewing people across the state and, you know, involve myself in peer support and advocacy. And I just keep going because I'm trying to, you know, raise awareness, but also keep talking about this all these conversations because it's important, and also, you know, helping people visualize the crisis and that's all.
What do you think is needed to address the direct care workforce crisis?
Alicia Hopkins: So I think that the the wages should be increased for home care workers. I also believe there should be transparency with um pay for providers and like the managed care credentialing and contracting because like some of us we have found providers but when we can't get them paid by the managed care companies or by the different systems that serve us, then that doesn't like allow for the people to stay in the field very long. I also think that we should be utilizing our underutilized job centers. There's so much resource there where people can get training as home care workers, get their first aid, CPR, background check and um get the training they need. I think that so much money is like wasted every year and on job centers that are go underutilized and they were meant to be like one stop shop. So why don't we do this with our our job centers by creating training centers for them and you know, making it so that in each county there's probably a pathway that is easy to become a provider because that is something that is not easy in Ohio, there's a lot of red tape to become a provider. Um and so um just but mainly we have, we have to raise the wages, but also we have to work on opportunities to recruit people as well
