Disabled woman says caregiver initiative ignores key issues

A Vancouver woman who won praise from community leaders last August when she gave away $1,600 worth of free groceries to local food banks and friends is hoping to draw attention to a different issue.

Debb Snyder is trying to raise awareness of the problem of abusive and neglectful caregivers in advance of the Nov. 4 election.

Before voters approve Initiative 1029, which would require more training for long-term caregivers, the clients of those caregivers should be asked about the quality of care they now receive, she says.

Snyder, 55, is disabled as a result of two brain aneurisms and injuries she suffered 20 years ago. The state-subsidized care she receives to help her with transportation, housekeeping and personal care allows her to remain at home in her modest apartment.

She’s one of eight members of a statewide steering committee that calls itself PAS-Port for Change. (PAS stands for Personal Assistance Services.) Its members lobby state agencies, labor unions and legislators for better-quality in-home care.

Snyder says the initiative, sponsored by Service Employees International Union, fails to address the core issues of abuse and neglect that concern the disabled and elderly, who are on the receiving end of care provided by state agency caregivers and independent providers.

“I advocate for 500 disabled people in Vancouver,” Snyder said. “We are out there talking to people who actually use the service. Our clients were not involved in putting this bill forward.”

The initiative would require all new caregivers beginning in 2010 to be state-certified, undergo an FBI background check and get at least 75 hours of training. SEIU mounted the campaign after it failed to get a training bill passed in the 2008 Legislature.

Snyder has tried without success to get the union to distribute a questionnaire she helped develop that asks consumers 59 questions about the quality of care they receive.

It asks whether they have been verbally or physically abused by a caregiver, whether a caregiver has failed to show up for work or arrived under the influence of drugs or alcohol, whether a caregiver has asked them for food or money or threatened them with abandonment.

Such experiences are common among those who depend on long-term care, Snyder said. Many clients fear their caregivers, she said, but they are reluctant to complain because they fear losing care even more.

“I would like to see the caregiver come in with a supervisor and answer questions posed by the client,” she said. “We’re not against the workers, but they need to be trained by us.”

Snyder says the state lacks adequate safeguards for vulnerable adults who are victimized by abusive caregivers.

State supervisors “‘hear’ us, but they don’t listen,” she said. “We are placated and patted on the head.”

“We need a hot line number we can call when we have a problem with a caregiver,” she said. The one time she tried to use the state help line, she said, she got transferred to a sex line.

Kathy Leitch, assistant secretary for aging and disability services in the Department of Social and Health Services, said she didn’t know about the sex line, but she acknowledged the problem.

Complaints of abuse, neglect, financial exploitation and abandonment are investigated by Adult Protective Services, and referred to the Office of the Attorney General if criminal charges are warranted, she said.

The agency also has a toll-free number, 866-ENDHARM, that is available around the clock.

The state gets about 13,000 complaints of abuse by caregivers annually from adults living in their own homes, Leitch said. More than 70 percent of those are from people who aren’t receiving state services.

“The trends are going up but part of that is demographic,” she said. The population is aging, and disabilities also are on the rise.

Area agencies on aging employ case managers, who check to see if clients are receiving services from caregivers, Leitch said, but following up on problems “depends on clients reporting what is going on with them.”

The state is trying to help clients who fear that they will lose care if they report problems, Leitch said. It has established referral agencies known as Home Care Quality Authorities in some parts of the state, including Clark County. “We did start it at the request of consumers, and it is being expanded,” she said.

Couldn’t a more rigorous training requirement attract more qualified people to the field?

Not necessarily, said Snyder, because the state “has not fixed the original problem. Increased wages have not worked; increased benefits have not worked.”

Leitch actually agrees that requiring more training will not, by itself, solve the problem of abusive and neglectful caregivers.

“In the nursing home world, you have CNAs (certified nurse assistants) who go through certification, but we still have complaints of abuse and neglect in nursing homes,” she said.

PAS-Port for Change “strongly agrees that training for workers is vital,” Snyder said. But she believes the training and the method of delivering that training should be in the hands of clients.

“We all need to get on the same page.”

Kathie Durbin: 360-735-4523 or kathie.durbin@columbian.com.