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It is imperative that we contact our state representatives and implore them to pass LD 2131.
Since 2014, Maine has seen 29 nursing facilities close, MaineCare reimbursement rates continually decline, and a nursing home workforce shortage that shows no signs of improving. These terrifying patterns threaten Maine’s ability to care for our ever-increasing aging population. Our capacity to care for our elderly population should be growing in tandem with the population itself, and instead a staggering disconnect exists between those two figures.
LD 2131 is an emergency bill, which reflects the urgent need of our nursing homes to be reimbursed at a higher rate and prioritized by our Legislature. I believe that if any one of us could wave a magic wand and manifest a thousand fully-staffed nursing homes from thin air, we would. But in our way is money, effort, time, and a million other matters to consider.
I am asking you to at this moment please prioritize our nursing homes and contact your legislators. Prioritize nursing staff who treat their residents like family. Prioritize my Pop, who passed last year but who remembered the peace of his nursing home in Houlton fondly. Prioritize one of our most vulnerable populations, a population that every single one of us will at one point belong to. We all deserve access to dignified, staffed, comfortable, and professional nursing care as we move on to whatever is next for us.
Eva White
Old Town
