ECONOMY
2022 HEALTH CARE EDITION
Nursing homes grapple with sta ng shortages fueled by pandemic Skilled nursing homes across Texas are facing sta ng challenges that have led to the closure of nearly 30 facilities between January 2020 and June 2021. If changes are not made, advocates said that might only be the beginning. Although the coronavirus pandemic exacerbated Warren said. The health care industry saw a reduction in jobs at the start of the pandemic but has largely recov- ered. Nursing homes saw the biggest drop and have been the slowest to recover, Warren said. BY SHAWN ARRAJJ Although the broader health care employment sector has recovered jobs lost during the pandemic, nursing homes are still down roughly 1,000 jobs in Harris County. Health care and social assistance employment LEFT BEHIND
Although the 30 closures represent only a small part of the 1,200 total facilities in Texas, Warren said those closures are just the beginning if changes are not made. He said the THCA is advocating the Texas Legis- lature to help build stronger programs for nursing students and to increase the Medicaid base rate for nursing homes, which he said has not been done in 10 years. Roughly two-thirds of all nursing home residents are funded through Medicaid, he said. George Linial, president of senior advocacy non- pro t LeadingAge Texas, said the group will ask the Legislature to allocate $400 million for recruitment and retention at state nursing homes. “By creating career paths to attract Texans to enter [the] long-term health care [job sector] and providing nursing homes with the necessary resources to pay them livable wages, we can build a workforce to secure the future of our eld and ensure seniors are taken care of in their later years,” he said.
260,662
260,600
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the di culties many nursing homes faced in retaining sta , those challenges date back before the pandemic, said Kevin Warren, president of the Texas Health Care Association, which advocates on behalf of roughly 400 nursing, post-acute and assisted-living facilities across Texas. “If you go back prepandemic, from a workforce perspective, long-term care and nursing homes in the state of Texas were already severely under- sta ed,” he said. Between January-September 2021, Texas saw a reduction in the workforce by roughly 10,000 employees in the nursing home sector, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Harris County saw a reduction of roughly 1,000 employees. “When you are talking about nursing home closures, … you’re talking about residents in the facilities who may have to be relocated farther away, families that may have to travel farther,”
175K
0
Jan. Apr. July
Oct.
Jan. Apr. July
Nursing and residential care facilities employment 2020 2021
22,133
25K 20K 15K 10K 5K 0
21,213
Jan. Apr. July Oct.
Jan. Apr. July
2020
2021
SOURCE: BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
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CYPRESS EDITION • JUNE 2022
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