The struggle to get in

May 26, 2023

Next up in 5

Example video title will go here for this video

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A shortage of in-home healthcare workers is straining some businesses and families in the Midlands.

Melissa and Irvan Landa say they've been given the run around since October, 2022 when trying to find care for her 2-year-old, Liam.

Liam suffers from a rare medical condition called beta-propeller protein-associated neurodegeneration. They say he requires around-the-clock assistance to live. Melissa says in the past 10 months she's been the primary caregiver. Turning their household with 4 other children into a single-income home.

"We have to tag team each other of who is going to sleep tonight, who's going to sleep tomorrow night. Someone needs to stay up with Liam because he does stop breathing in the middle of the night, he does have these turning blue spells and it's scary," she says.

She explains that being a full-time caregiver has put her professional goals, including nursing school on hold. She explains even after being assigned a case state worker, they aren't finding anyone that can help.

"She's calling all the way to Greenville, she's asking around for other caseworkers, if they've heard anything." She adds, "we've reached out on social media, we've put posts in Columbia, and surrounding area group pages for any LPs or RNs who are looking for work

The lack of workers follows a trend nationally according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics that predicts over 700,000 openings for home and personal caregivers in the next ten years mainly due to "The need to replace workers who transfer to different occupations or exit the labor force, such as to retire."

Mary Young is the administrator at Charrm Homecare, an organization that provides at-home caregivers for elder people and children. She says they’re struggling to maintain the number of employees necessary to meet the demand, with over 40 clients and around 30 employees.

"We are struggling to find people with a passion to go into the homes and actually have an in-person kind of delivery of services the healthcare industry as a whole is sure nurses doctors everything so him we’re all seeing the stresses of it" She adds, "so if someone leaves our team then we have to fill that slot first before we can grow to be able to take on new clients and so that’s the frustration of it all."

She says they’re trying everything to see a positive change in the business, claiming, "We’ve started to offer retention bonuses to keep people on the team we’ve aligned with different CNA schools kind of attract the new grads we’re going into high schools for career days we are participating in those kinds of things."

Charrm's career page can be found here.