Home Health Services
There are several Home health Services available for senior citizen and disabled people who do not want to go live in an assisted living home or a senior citizen apartment. There are many home health services available across the United states. Some services include nursing services or special medical equipment services such as oxygen machines and other needed medical equipment prescribed by a doctor. This equipment is checked on a regular basis as is the patient. There is in home nursing services in which a qualified nurse goes to the patients house on a regular basis and checks the patients vital stats and gives any other aid as prescribed by the doctor.
Other home health services available include someone going into the individuals home to assist them with homework, cooking meals, assisting them with their dressing if needed, bathing, grooming, laundry, medication reminders and assistance if needed to open bottles, light housekeeping, conversation and companionship, exercise, grocery shopping, oral hygiene, feeding if needed, communication with the family, mail assistance, recreational activities, etc.
The federal law states that home health care aides are not entitled to minimum wages or overtime. The minimum wage is $5.15 and many home health aides spend nights with patients sometimes. The federal government sees this as just a babysitting job only with elderly instead of children. Some people are fighting to get this law changed. This may be the reason why so many of these organizations have trouble keeping good workers. They can not afford to work for minimum wages and support their families too. Maybe the Senators and representatives should go take care of some of these patients for a while and see for themselves that the job is worth much more than they get paid. Sometimes the elderly can be very hard to manage because they have become senile, have alzheimer’s, or have to have diapers changed, etc. and this is not as easy to be done on an adult as it is on a child. Whoever thought this was just a babysitting job needs to be ordered to do the job for a month then see if they still feel the same way. There is a great need for these home health services because many people do so much better if they are in the comfort of their own homes and they may not have family members who have the time to check on them everyday or clean their house, etc. The people who are hired for these jobs should be commended for what they do and not be punished by just getting minimum wages or less. There are some home health services that pay better than that and they also pay mileage.
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