Sarah Lombardo has worked at Westmoreland Manor nursing home in Greensburg, PA for 11 ½ years and as a Registered Nurse at the facility for four years.
Her facility was given over $1.5 million dollars in federal tax dollars to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic through the American Rescue Plan. But when Sarah learned that middle managers and senior executives at Westmoreland Manor might be paid significant cash bonuses from some of those federal funds, she became angry.
Sarah demanded to testify and take action along with other Union caregivers to tell county commissioners why ALL those federal funds must be used to fix our short-staffing crisis and be used for quality bedside care for nursing home residents and seniors.
Read Sarah’s forceful and compelling statement to the Westmoreland County Board in full below.
Statement by Sarah Lombardo RN, Westmoreland Manor Nursing Home
Our federal tax dollars must be used to provide better care to our nursing home residents and seniors at Westmoreland Manor during this Covid-19 pandemic and to help solve our county’s short-staffing crisis.
My name is Sarah Lombardo.
I have worked at Westmoreland Manor nursing home in Greensburg for 11 ½ years and as a Registered Nurse at the facility for four years.
I protect and care for my residents like they are my own family.
Our SEIU Healthcare PA Union, made up of dedicated nurses, CNAs, and essential caregivers, have witnessed the devastation of COVID-19 pandemic first-hand, which is why we fought for and demanded that federal dollars from the American Rescue Plan go directly to the bedside and to frontline workers to help ease the staffing crisis.
Without my fellow union workers raising our voices none of this funding would have gone to support our residents and frontline staff.
Westmoreland Manor has received $1,507,706 in those federal tax funds.
Approximately half of that $1.5M in federal funding will go to frontline Union caregivers who served during this pandemic – there are still three critical issues that the Salary Board must address in its upcoming meeting.
- We demand that ALL of the federal funds to Westmoreland Manor be allocated to direct bedside care and the caregivers who serve and protect our residents during this ongoing Covid-19 pandemic so we can address our short staffing crisis.
- None of this federal money should be used to pay bonuses for middle management and senior executives at Westmoreland Manor who aren’t risking their health and safety or providing direct care to our residents like our fellow Union sisters and brothers did.
- We demand that these federal funds be released to frontline Union caregivers NOW, without delay, to immediately improve staffing, retain our essential caregivers from leaving the workforce, and provide pandemic pay as a recognition of our service to our residents.
Any delay risks that these federal tax dollars will be used in a rainy-day or slush fund, or some program that will make it difficult if not impossible to track and demand accountability for.
Taxpayers deserve to know that federal relief funds are going to help our residents.
As frontline workers in the middle of a global pandemic, we witnessed residents die and become gravely ill along with our fellow workers.
That’s why giving middle and senior managers bonuses who didn’t put on scrubs in the height of the Covid-19 pandemic while we were overwhelmed during this crisis and were utterly traumatized, is insulting to me and to my fellow Union workers.
It is urgent that we retain and recruit nursing home workers before our short-staffing crisis worsens. That was the intent of the American Rescue Plan funding and how it was supposed to be used.
That’s why I strongly urge our County Commissioners, regardless of your political affiliation, to allocate all of these federal funds to address our county’s short-staffing crisis, to provide pandemic pay to frontline nursing home workers who are still overwhelmed and overworked, and to improve our bedside care for our seniors and residents.
Thank you.