Seniors and Workers for Quality
2010 Legislative Platform
Assuring Safety, Preventing Harm
Advocate for a public commitment to staffing, compensation, training and supervision to assure safety and prevent harm in long-term care facilities and services.
(1) Oppose proposals for long-term care funding reductions.
(2) Oppose weakening of consumer and worker protections.
(3) Support stability and increases in worker wages & benefits.
Work with the Legislature to put together a response to the federal health care reform law and state report on insuring Minnesota’s long term care work force.
Advocate for staffing levels that provide quality care and worker safety including falls prevention. Staffing matters.
Minnesota families provide most of the care to their elders and loved ones with disabilities, but they cannot do it alone. Together, we face a shrinking workforce of people whose low pay and limited benefits create a costly spiral of turnover and hiring costs. The reality is that these higher costs are coupled with poorer quality care.
Since its inception in 1999, Seniors and Workers for Quality has stood for the bond between people who depend on daily care and those who provide it. We support quality care standards, monitoring and swift response to maltreatment.
Of fundamental importance, we seek to assure safety and prevent harm by advocating for long-term care reimbursement that supports safe levels of staffing, training and supervision, in workplaces where people feel rewarded and stay for years.
A workforce of part-time, short-term, and poorly-supported people, who are forced by circumstances to work long hours (including double shifts) at breakneck speed with highly dependent people, is a recipe for tragedy.
For further information, contact Anne Bomstad Miller, Grasstops, Inc.
anne@grasstopsinc.org or 612-756-1313 January 2010