This testimony from Tisheia Frazier, CNA is originally from April 12, 2022, when Tisheia and President Matthew Yarnell spoke in front of the House Aging & Older Adult Services Committee on the healthcare “workforce crisis.”
Good morning. I want to thank members of the committee for having me here today to share my experience as a caregiver during COVID-19, and discuss why we must reform our nursing home system.
My name is Tisheia Frazer. I am a wife, a mother, and I have been a nursing home CNA in Philadelphia since 2003.
Caregiving work is not easy, and it never has been. Not only do we bathe, feed, move, and help our residents use the bathroom, but we are also their family. We are the ones they see every day, and we bond with them. We listen to their stories, we tell them about our lives too. For some residents, we are the only family they have – During the height of COVID when we were in lockdown – we were the only family ANY of them had.
The problems with our nursing home system, including poor staffing and lack of funding, existed long before the pandemic. But COVID devastated us.
It’s been a terrifying time to be a caregiver. For a while, we were not allowed to wear masks because it would “scare the residents” even though we knew it put us, and them at risk. When we finally got PPE, it was locked away. About 90% of our residents had COVID by then, and we were told to put our masks in a brown paper bag between shifts and reuse them fo 5 days.. Residents were moved around like it was musical chairs – from floor to floor, one side of the hallway to another. It was chaos.
We lost half our residents in 2 months. They died without family, often alone. No one to sit with them, or pray with them, or even look them in the eye in their final hours.
Each time someone died, we were told to put a pillowcase over their heads, because the undertaker wouldn’t take them if their face was exposed, in case they could still be contagious. The dignity and humanity of our residents was stripped away.
It was like a horror movie, but not one where you could turn off the TV or turn your head when the scary part came on.
I was infuriated when I would hear people – even our own management – say, “They were old. They were going to die anyway.” Our seniors spent their whole lives working and contributing to their community. This is how they’re being treated?
As a caregiver, it was overwhelming because we felt like we were failing them. Even though it was against protocol, and I could have gotten in trouble for it, one day as I sat with a resident who was actively dying, I took off my glove and held her hand. She deserved to have human contact in her final hours.
Now two years later, we aren’t seeing so many deaths. But there is still so much pain, and so many caregivers fleeing the workforce. Beyond the mental and emotional burden, I see CNAs forced into retirement because their bodies are breaking down. Lifting, moving, and showering residents takes its toll.
We will continue losing caregivers and there won’t be enough of us to do this work – unless you, our elected leaders – act
We pick up double shifts for 3 or 4 days to cover for the holes in the schedule, and then when we need a day off to recover, we are refused PTO.
When we, as nursing home workers, come to you, we aren’t exaggerating. This isn’t woe-is-me complaining. We are suffering. We are in crisis. I truly believe there are enough people who would go into this career if these jobs were good jobs where workers were respected and paid fairly. We need accountable funding for nursing home care to make that happen. We need to build our workforce and invest in training to make sure our residents get the care they need.
Our residents are living breathing human beings who still smile, laugh, cry, and get angry. They are counting on us, and we are counting on you. You need to act before too many caregivers leave, and before nursing homes shut down and leave our seniors with nowhere to go.