The home health care industry struggles to hire and retain workers due to the lack of wages for jobs such as changing adult undergarments, monitoring vitals and administering medication to frail patients. For people who rely on personal care assistance to eat, drink, get in and out of bed or engage in daily living tasks, a lack of direct care providers can literally cause people to starve, injure themselves trying to move around without support and often must call 911 because they are left in an emergency health situation with no support. Ohio has three million low-income and disabled people on Medicaid. It pays for the bulk of long-term care.
The Ability Center, alongside other statewide agencies, are advocating to establish a statewide home care minimum wage and an oversight committee.
