In 2019, Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones II’s father had a stroke. After spending some time in the hospital, doctors sent him home.
That’s when Jones said he, his mother and his sister became caregivers for his father.
Jones, a Democrat from Augusta, said he and his family were able to pool available resources to help his father recover.
“We put in the paperwork, of course, to get nursing care through (Veterans Affairs), but it takes time,” he said. “There’s a lot of red tape that you have to go through to get a lot of services. They’re there, but you have to go through different things.”
Jones held the first of several meetings Wednesday for senators to study ways to improve family caregiver services. Lawmakers meet between sessions to study various topics that often generate proposed legislation.
Wednesday’s meeting was in Augusta, but the three remaining hearings will be held in Atlanta, Jones said. The next one is Sept. 17 at the state Capitol.
Insurance companies often decide when older adults who receive Medicare are discharged from hospitals and rehabilitation centers, which isn’t always when the patient is ready to be on their own. That means those older adults will require assistance in some form, whether it be from a hired home health care worker or a cash-strapped family member.
During Wednesday’s meeting, several Augusta-area residents shared the difficulties they’ve faced caring for family members. Heather Peck told senators she was struggling with the guilt of recently placing her mother in the memory care unit of an assisted living facility.
“My decision to place her in the facility was the hardest and most selfish thing I have ever done, because I had to put my needs first,” she said. “I’m working through the guilt, and I see that because I wasn’t able to take care of myself, I couldn’t take care of her.”
Jones said he hopes the committee finds ways to help families care for their elderly relatives, whether it be cash payments or supporting workers’ requests for more flexible work schedules.
State Sen. Larry Walker III, a Perry Republican who is expected to be the new Senate president pro tem in January, said he’s known second hand about the difficulties. But as his parents age, he’s becoming more familiar with it, personally.
“Ever since COVID, one of the main things I hear from my constituents is shortage of workforce, shortage of labor … and certainly it is very acute in the health care field and the home care field,” Walker said. “I do hope we can identify some unique ideas and solutions that we can bring to bear with the workforce challenges.”
The initial meeting was stacked with professionals across the world of elder care, including representatives from AARP, the Alzheimer’s Association and the state’s Division of Aging Services.
“Right now, there’s somebody in their car taking their loved one home, and they’re now a health care worker,” Jones said. “And they have no clue what they’re supposed to be doing, but that’s what they are. They’re now an untrained health care worker.”
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