County nursing home employee: Layoffs unfair

Aug. 30--KINGSVILLE -- One of the 17 county nursing home employees who will be laid off Monday told the Star Beacon she feels management decisions are responsible for the facility's recent loss of patients and consequent staffing shakeup.

Amber Rivers, 30, has been a licensed practical nurse at the Ashtabula County Nursing and Rehabilitation Center since June 2014. When she started, Rivers said the 163-bed center housed about 120 patients, according to regular census results. A census performed a week ago reported only 97 patients, she said.

"I've known nurses that have been there for 30 years and they said they've never seen it that low before," Rivers said.

She said she feels one reason for the year's decline was administrators' decision to take aides away from the skilled nurse unit and focus on

"primary nursing," in which nurses form singular relationships with their patients throughout care.

"Instead of getting cared for and their medication at the same time, it often took longer for the nurse to do both jobs," Rivers wrote in an email. "If patients are not happy, word gets around in the community pretty fast."

That decision has since been reversed, Rivers said, but five of those aides will be let go Monday, along with nine licensed practical nurses and three other general employees.

The layoffs were first announced at an Ashtabula County Commissioners meeting Aug. 18. Commissioner Peggy Carlo told the Star Beacon the shift is intended to keep the center financially viable in a time when decreasing demand is affecting the entire long-term nursing care industry.

"Our dollars are based on certain censuses and we've been below (the norm) for a period of time," she said last week. "I don't think it was really a surprise for any of the staff.

"You know when you work in a (nursing home) and the beds aren't filled -- you can't keep operating like that."

But for Rivers and several others who were handed papers at a staff meeting before their 12-hour shift, it was a surprise. She and five other employees on her shift that night talked about finding new work.

"We were shocked. I didn't even know I was getting laid off until I left the meeting and read the paper," she said.

The mother of three said she will also lose her insurance once her employment ends Monday. She said union representatives recommended registering for Affordable Care Act coverage.

Carlo said employees who lost their jobs can bid on different positions. At the staff meeting, Rivers said human resources told laid off nurses they could be bumped to a State-Tested Nursing Assistant, but none of those positions are currently available -- it would also mean a decrease in pay.

Rivers said she'll be filing a union grievance with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3284, seeking to resume her employment.

Union staffing representatives were unavailable for comment.

"I feel sorry (for) the staff and residents that are left there -- they are great people," Rivers said. "The staff will be overworked and the residents will suffer from it.

"I just think (the layoffs) could be managed a lot better than that," she said. "It wasn't really fair."

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