Urging Senators Snowe and Collins to support FMAP

I am a direct care worker employed by Alpha One, and am urging Senators Snowe and Collins to support extending the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage funding known as FMAP and MaineCare.

In my job, I provide direct care services for a quadriplegic woman who counts on daily direct-care services so she can continue living in her home.

For those who are not familiar with direct care services, here's what I do every day on the job.

I make her breakfast, distribute medications, provide bowel care, and assemble the sling and hoyer lift to transfer her from the bed to shower.

I bathe her, transfer her back from shower to bed, towel dry her, provide deodorant and lotions, and dress her. I provide her with skin care for her legs, and arm weights to keep her limbs strong.

I provide catheter care. I transfer her from her bed to her wheelchair. And I perform housework for her: laundry, cooking, bookkeeping, grocery shopping, errands and doctors' appointments.

Keep in mind that thousands of other direct care workers in Maine provide similar services for the Maine people they care for.

Like other direct care workers, I find it especially fulfilling that my work makes it possible for thousands of Maine people to live independently in their own homes – instead of being forced into more expensive nursing or boarding homes.

Fortunately in the past few years, Maine's leaders have recognized the urgent need to build a reliable workforce of direct care workers to meet the growing demand for these services in all Maine communities. For direct care workers at Alpha One, this resulted in a pay raise from the $7.71 an hour that our pay had been frozen at for eight years, to the current $10 an hour. There are still no benefits whatsoever.

Direct care workers in Maine are determined to provide quality care for the people they serve. Yet we were shocked to learn that unless Senators Snowe and Collins extend the FMAP funding through the fiscal year ending June 30, 2011, that the $85 million in cuts to follow would severely diminish the services that are helping thousands of Maine people live independently in their own homes.

Unless Senators Snowe and Collins vote to extend FMAP funding, Maine people who use direct care services would see their services substantially cut back, forcing many of them out of their homes against their will.

Direct care workers themselves would see their hourly wages cut, forcing many to find better paying work elsewhere. This would threaten the quality care provided, and create real turmoil among Maine people who count on reliable direct care services.

Finally, unless Senators Snowe and Collins extend the FMAP funding, Maine's efforts to build a reliable network of direct care workers would suffer great harm – just as the demand for direct care services is increasing all across our nation.

For these reasons, I urge Senators Snowe and Collins to approve the FMAP extensions.

 

Helen Hanson, of South China, is president of the Maine Direct Care Workers Union Local 771 of the Maine State Employees Association, Local 1989 of the Service Employees International Union.

 

If you're reading this, please call 1-877-442-6801 and tell our Senators to support extending FMAP.