Like many states, Rhode Island is facing an acute shortage of professional caregivers. The dearth of nurses, CNAs, and home health aides has left many health care advocates wondering what can be done to combat the problem.
Anna Matos-Mournighan, director of the health care administration graduate program at Salve Regina University, says it’s time for local communities to become more actively involved in the search for caregiving alternatives. She offered some solutions in a conversation with Ocean State Media’s Luis Hernandez.
Interview highlights
On the impact of the caregiver shortage in Rhode Island:
Anna Matos-Mournighan: So in Rhode Island, the older adult dependency ratio is 27.6, which means that we need about 27 to 28 older adults for every 100 working-age adults. There’s a growing share of the population that’s older and more likely to need healthcare, social services, and retirement supports.
Now, this obviously has a very direct impact on the healthcare system, but it also impacts the older adults of Rhode Island in terms of their care, which could be long-term care, as well as in-home services. We are seeing an impact there as well with the reduction of home health aides, in particular.
We’ve had ten closures of nursing homes in Rhode Island, so we lost about 20% of the workforce for Rhode Island nursing homes since 2020. Nearly 70% of Rhode Island nursing homes are understaffed. There aren’t enough workers to actually support the older adults.
On how Rhode Island’s caregiver shortage is forcing family members to care for loved ones:
Matos-Mournighan: This group of individuals (is) dedicating a great deal of their time and money to caregiving for their loved ones or family members. Their efforts amount to about 113 million hours of unpaid care, which is the equivalent of $2.1 billion in labor. Approximately 80% of them are paying out of pocket to meet some of their care needs or for their loved ones, which is about 25% of their income. 44% are experiencing financial challenges. So when we’re talking about a stronger healthcare workforce, obviously, we need more professional healthcare workers, but we also need more support for family caregivers.
On how Rhode Island communities can use the Village model to support older adults:
Matos-Mournighan: The Village movement was started abroad, but it actually has come to the United States. We have a Village model here in Rhode Island. It’s a member-run community model. It’s a nonprofit, volunteer-driven organization, and it really helps older adults in their homes by connecting them to local village networks. These village networks support each other. It’s older adults helping older adults, so peer support – something as simple as, “I need help to change my light bulb. I need someone to come in.” An older adult who’s able to do that would come into the local village and help with that.
On how a shared housing model can be used to support older Rhode Islanders:
Matos-Mournighan: So an older adult would either post or list space for rent in their apartment or home where they’re looking to live with one or more older adults. They can share in rent, mortgage, household tasks; think Golden Girls, right? That’s the one [example] that we think of most.
What is innovative, very innovative, is this idea that colleges and universities are now starting to see the value in having older adults either live on campus or adjacent to campus. They’re starting these new housing models. Lasell University in Massachusetts has such an offering. So it’s really a win-win for both the university as well as the older adults.
