Retired health care CEO says nursing home funding is key to providing quality care

For 40 years, I dedicated my life to caring for frail elderly people at Bethany Health Care Center in Framingham, a nursing home that strives to provide the highest level of care to those who can no longer safely live alone at home.

Bethany is a sponsored ministry of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Boston. It was a privilege to tend to those who had given so much of themselves to society and now needed care themselves.

I’ve seen a lot over those four decades. When I started, skilled nursing homes weren’t serving such an acutely ill population as they are now. Back then it was more like providing housing with support for those who needed long-term care. We had very few short-term residents.

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By far the most significant challenge of my career was the pandemic. It was a very difficult time, and our main goal was ensuring our residents didn’t get ill. Many of our staff did get COVID-19, and those who didn’t were working overtime to meet staffing requirements. Across the sector, we were already suffering from a workforce shortage that only worsened during the pandemic.

What a precarious time it was for nursing homes throughout the state. But there were some positives that came of it, and those will benefit future nursing facility residents.

Infection control rose to new levels, and we carry forth the valuable lessons learned. And over the last three years, lawmakers have stepped up with supplemental funding that has allowed us to substantially increase wages for our deserving frontline and direct-care staff, so they can earn far more competitive wages than they did before the pandemic.

In addition, the state has taken important steps to begin to address the decades of low Medicaid funding, and has begun to make progress in updating the funding formula to be more in line with the true costs of care. We aren’t there yet, but this is incredibly important because the majority (roughly 70%) of nursing home residents throughout the Commonwealth rely on MassHealth to pay for their care. At Bethany that number is even higher, at 85%. It makes it difficult to run a facility, whether it's for-profit or nonprofit.

This, along with innovative state-sponsored career ladder programs intended to help train and grow our workforce, has made it easier to recruit, train and retain staff.

When you picture a skilled nursing facility, I ask you to think of a home-like environment. We want our residents to feel as though it is their home. In addition to nursing care, there are stimulating activities, good food, artworks, events, pretty curtains and so much more to enhance resident comfort. They aren’t the sort of blank-walled, sterile places depicted in movies.

The investments lawmakers have made over the last few years have enabled many nursing homes to continue to provide quality care in a nurturing environment. We must continue the progress we have made over the last three years.

The cost of living doesn’t stop increasing. Food is more expensive, but we don’t want that to impact the nutritious meals we provide. Supplies are more expensive but we’re not going to limit activities that bring joy to so many of our residents. And we must stay competitive with wages in order to retain our dedicated staff and to fill the many job vacancies we have.

We can’t go backward. We must move forward and build upon these investments to ensure we’re there as the demand for our critical services increases. To do that, we must continue to raise staff wages, hire more staff, and have the capacity to care for more medically complex patients. That takes funding.

Having had 40 years of experience, I can honestly say, neither the need nor the challenges have ever been greater.

Sister Jacquelyn M. McCarthy, CSJ, R.N., was CEO/administrator at Bethany Health Care Center in Framingham. She retired in December and now resides at The Sisters of St. Joseph of Boston.

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Former Bethany Health Care CEO: Funding is key to good nursing care