Mechelle shared her story as part of MECEP’s Closing the Gap: Maine’s Direct Care Shortage and Solutions to Fix It report. Click here to read the full report.
Mechelle is a certified nursing assistant (CNA) with 28 years of experience working in home health care, assisted living, and residential care for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She currently works as a restorative nurse aid at a nursing home in Presque Isle. Shortly after sharing her story for this report, Mechelle learned that the nursing home where she works is preparing to close permanently. Mechelle is a member of the Direct Care and Support Professional Advisory Council.
When we don’t have enough staff, we really rely on the staff we do have. When someone calls out sick, it makes us even shorter. We get called in on our day off. I find myself agreeing to shifts that I really don’t have the energy to do. I’m making myself even more tired, more worn out, and after a few weeks of that I end up missing a couple of days of work myself, because now I’ve made myself sick. It’s a vicious cycle. I’ve seen a lot of good CNAs leave the field altogether because they’re just completely burnt out. They just didn’t have any more in them.
When I started working here four years ago, I made $14.75 per hour. After a couple of years, I made almost $4 in raises. I was making $18 when the base rate was changed to $20 during the pandemic. On paper it was a wage boost, but in reality, it was a wage cut, because it didn’t factor in all my years of raises and experience. I’ve been a CNA for nine years, but now I’m getting paid the same as someone who’s been a CNA for nine days. That’s really frustrating. It makes me feel like all the experience I have doesn’t mean anything. The skills I bring to the table are lessened because it’s reflected in how I’m paid. It doesn’t feel fair.
I’m lucky enough to have health insurance and a 401K. We can get meal tickets here. But what would really help a lot of people is having child care. Staff members with kids set their schedules so that their shift ends in time to pick their kids up from school. But if the person scheduled to follow that shift calls in sick, the staff member can’t leave. They’re stuck there. They’re obligated. If they leave, that’s abandonment. So that leads to frantic phone calls, “Can you go get my kids?” They’re stressed, they’re crying, “What am I going to do?!”
There really needs to be some kind of fail safe for situations like that. Because for parents with young children, sometimes it just takes one experience like that to convince them to find a new job.
I don’t think lawmakers really understand the value and importance of this role in people’s lives. At some point in their life, every single person is going to need someone like me. I don’t think that a person who has this important of a job should have to stand in line at the food pantry. I don’t think we should be struggling, trying to figure out if we’re going to pay our electricity bill or get groceries. I know I matter. I know I make a difference. And that’s OK, but I would not mind my wallet to be padded a little. It sure would make my life a lot easier.
