Demand For Nurses Highest In Decades Convalescent Homes Desperate For Workers

A Kirkland nursing home has come up with an unusual way to recruit registered nurses.

Any employee who brings a new nurse on board has a crack at winning a vacation to the island of his or her choice.

“Fiji, Bali, Aruba, Hawaii - we’ll send them anywhere,” said Matthew Lysobey, executive director of Lakevue Gardens Convalescent Center.

When it comes to hiring, nursing homes have always had a tough time competing with hospitals.

“Young nurses just graduating want to be in the (emergency room) or critical care. That’s what looks glamorous and exciting to them,” said Ruth Craven, assistant dean at the University of Washington School of Nursing.

Lysobey is bucking more than tradition in a push to hire eight more registered nurses. He’s facing what some are calling the worst hiring crunch in more than three decades.

Compelled by a hot job market and an apparent shortage of nurses, nursing homes are scrambling for employees.

“Statewide what we’re hearing is that all long-term care facilities are having trouble finding staff - not just nurses, but any kind of staff,” said Denise Gaither of the state Department of Social and Health Services.

Gaither expects it to be a major issue during the Legislature’s next session because the state pays the bill for about 70 percent of nursing home patients.

Nursing homes are lobbying for an increase in Medicaid payments so they can pay their employees more.

Relief can’t come soon enough for Pearl Barnes, who closed a wing in her Redmond nursing home, Cascade Vista, because she doesn’t have the staff to keep it open.

“Cascade is licensed for 139 (patients), and I’m now running 120,” she said recently.

Barnes, who also owns Evergreen Vista in Kirkland, said the hiring crunch is the worst she can recall in 33 years in the nursing home business.

Nursing homes are feeling the squeeze at all levels, she said - from registered nurses to the certified nursing assistants who provide much of the bedside care.

Although Barnes acted voluntarily in curtailing admissions, the state imposed a ban on new admissions at Eastside Medical and Rehabilitation in Bellevue because of problems attributed to a severe shortage of nursing assistants.

At Lakevue Gardens, Lysobey has relied on nursing agencies to fill the gap. But the temporary workers don’t know the residents, and Lysobey has to pay them twice as much because the agency takes a cut. That’s why he’s determined to hire his own nurses.

“We don’t have a nursing home in the state that doesn’t have a (hiring) problem,” said Karen Tynes of the Washington Association of Housing and Services for the Aging.

The nonprofit association, which represents some 50 nursing homes, is part of a coalition lobbying for higher pay for nursing assistants and other “front-line caregivers,” Tynes said.

“When you have a limited work force then what you’re able to pay becomes pretty critical.”

Nursing assistants typically earn about $8 an hour, although in the Seattle area their pay can be as high as $10 an hour, Tynes said.

With the economy booming, Tynes says nursing assistants have found they can make as much money - or more - doing something that isn’t nearly as demanding.

“They have a very, very difficult job,” Tynes said. “They’re dealing with a very fragile group of clients in one of the most regulated industries in the country. Someone is always looking over your shoulder.”

Because they depend on state funding, nursing homes are limited on how much they can pay as they try to stay competitive.

Tynes and her group hope to persuade the Legislature to raise Medicaid payments enough to pay nursing assistants $13 an hour, but that’s just a starting point for discussion, Tynes said.

“The real issue,” she said, “is to get legislators to commit to doing something.”