Nursing home workers call for accountability

Nursing home workers gathered in Harrisburg Thursday to call for accountability from an industry they said operates with few consequences for putting profits over resident care.

The Pennsylvania Health Care Association said the union’s move could harm advocacy efforts to improve conditions for seniors.

Workers are demanding that these vital public dollars go directly to quality care to end the industry-wide staffing crisis, SEIU Healthcare PA said in a statement.

While nursing home operators have been lobbying for additional state money for nursing homes, the largest nursing home workers’ union has been trying to build a partnership with the industry to together address the crisis of care, including to retain and attract workers, higher wages and better resources and equipment for residents and patients, SEIU said.

But on Tuesday, the industry failed to commit to the partnership and accountability to transform nursing homes, bringing discussions to a halt, the union said.

“SEIU Healthcare PA is threatening to oppose our advocacy efforts if more nursing facilities are not unionized,” said Zack Shamberg, president and CEO, Pennsylvania Health Care Association. “The reality is the union is losing members because facilities are closing. And facilities are closing because they can’t sustain operations due to a lack of funding.”

Operators such as Priority Healthcare Group and Comprehensive Healthcare, two of the largest nursing home chains in the state that owe over $6.1 million and $4 million in unpaid bed taxes, have not engaged in any discussion with the union about the future of resident care, SEIU said.

The union said operators with lengthy records of care violations, fines, and fraud have hired teams of lobbyists to demand hundreds of millions of dollars in new state funding without any accountability to ensure public dollars go directly to care.

Left unchecked, these profit-driven, care-cutting business practices have made it increasingly challenging to deliver continuous care and solve workforce shortages deepened by the COVID-19 pandemic, it said.

SEIU said in the past few weeks alone, more than 20 long-term care facilities have filed for bankruptcy in the Pittsburgh-area, keeping residents and their families in the dark of potential closures and scrambling to find care elsewhere. Four of these homes are owned by Comprehensive Healthcare, the company recently found guilty of Medicaid fraud and falsifying staffing information, SEIU said.

Jefferson Hills nursing home shut down with only one hour’s notice after new owner Bonamour Health Group LLC defaulted on their mortgage loan, and workers say they were not paid for weeks, the union said.

Amidst the sale of nursing homes across the state, the owner of Skyline Healthcare, the chain which rapidly expanded in states such as Pennsylvania and collapsed in 2019, pleaded guilty to $38 million in tax fraud, the union said.

“The public stance SEIU is now taking has transported us back to 2022 when all of these ‘accountability’ demands were originally addressed. Because of our joint efforts two years ago, Pennsylvania law now states that 70% of total nursing home costs must be allocated to resident and resident-related care, which is primarily staff wages and benefits,” Shamberg said.

“We addressed more transparency in new nursing facility regulations that provide the state with copious amounts of operational details. And we jointly increased staffing requirements, which still aren’t fully funded,” Shamberg added. “It is now 2024, and providers are left with more regulations and little funding to support resident care.”

With 2.2 million seniors, the state is ranked 5th among 50 states whose population is aged 65 and older, SEIU said.

“The primary focus of nursing home providers across Pennsylvania right now is to keep their facilities open to their vulnerable residents,” Shamberg said. “Even so, PHCA members were willing to focus their attention on SEIU's needs and support their membership, but the union walked away and began using rhetoric that harms the entire long-term care continuum inclusive of the work SEIU members do.”

This tactic could very well jeopardize the care of thousands of nursing home residents across the state, Shamberg said.

“If SEIU truly cares about accountability, their leadership should support the adoption and funding of ecwip , PHCA's quality incentive program, to ensure supplemental funding is awarded to providers excelling in delivering quality care and minimizing staffing turnover," he added.

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