October 18, 2007

By Courtney Bishop

When we showed up at Manor Care headquarters in Toledo yesterday, I was surprised by the high security at the building. Most of the entrances were locked up, and if you did want to enter, you had to walk through a metal detector, and then get a second screening with a hand-held metal detector. And you had to leave your cell phone outside.

I learned long ago that for some people, high security is a status symbol: you must be important if you have lots of men and machines standing between you and the guy on the street. So it didn’t occur to me until today, when we pulled up to the Manor Care facility in Lancaster, OH and were told we couldn’t enter the building, that the security isn’t just a status thing…it’s a fear thing.

We told them we wanted to talk to the workers and patients at the home. The administrators who came out to meet us in the parking lot said we couldn’t. This made me a little mad, because I came on this trip because I care about my patients and others like them, and I’m concerned about the quality of care they receive. I want to talk to my peers about how they’re doing, and how they’re being supported by management in their efforts to provide the best care possible for their patients. But today, I couldn’t. I just had to get back on the bus.

I’m a Certified Nurses’ Aide (CNA) at a home in Illinois. I’ve read up on private equity. I read the New York Times story about how the buyouts have affected patient care at other nursing home chains, and it scares me. Where I work, we often have 2 or 3 CNAs on a shift responsible for 50 or 60 patients. And I know that, compared to other places, my patients and I have got it good.

I have trouble imagining what work would be like if somebody decided to “trim the fat” from the budget and get rid of some of the RNs and CNAs, which has happened at a number of the homes bought out by private equity. Patient care would plummet. Dedicated workers would lose their jobs because their higher skill levels make them a financial liability.

One thing I know for sure is that if workers had a place at the table in these decisions, maintaining safe patient care standards would be non-negotiable. If the execs at the top who are (re-)writing the budgets shared this top priority with us, why are they locking us out? I don’t have a lot of money. I don’t have a bodyguard, or even a hand-held metal detector. So why are they acting so scared?

Courtney Bishop works as a Certified Nurse Aide (CNA) at Glenwood Care Center in Joliet, Illinois. He is a member of SEIU Local 4.