Denise Billingsley, administrator at NHC Healthcare, describes to members of the Barren Fiscal Court the growing retention problems in local healthcare on Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2021. LaDonna Rogers, Chief of Human Resources of T.J. Regional Health, sits in foreground.
(BRENNAN CRAIN/WCLU NEWS)
GLASGOW, Ky. — The local healthcare system is facing dire straits as many personnel leave for higher paying jobs and freedom from the pandemic’s work-related stress.
Healthcare representatives and frontline employees pleaded Tuesday before the Barren Fiscal Court for a portion of the county’s American Rescue Plan Act funding.
“I watched my coworkers kneel beside a bed, sit on the bed, hold the lady’s hand, say a prayer with her, caress her hair as she took her last breath,” said John Stephens, RN. “All the while their family was six feet away looking through a plate glass window.”
Magistrates most recently passed a plan to provide bonuses for its own employees. The court was asked to consider passing some of that funding to healthcare personnel in the county.
Representatives from T.J. Regional Health and nursing facilities described the crippling impact the coronavirus has taken on local facilities.
LaDonna Rogers, T.J. Regional Health’s Chief of Human Resources, said retention issues headline the administration’s concerns. Many nurses leave the rural hospital for higher paying jobs in larger cities or travel nursing jobs.
Some workers are leaving healthcare altogether, citing the unprecedented mental health impacts caused by the pandemic.
“In an average year, prior to COVID, we were losing 70 patients a year. During COVID we’ve lost as many as 40 a month,” Rogers said. “That’s where the burnout and stress and anxiety come from because they’re not accustomed to that.”
Aside from those leaving, young nurses passing through T.J. Samson Hospital often do not stay long. Western Kentucky University students often bypass Glasgow, Rogers said.
And travel nursing gigs sometimes pay as much as three times more than the community hospital can afford.
Neil Thornbury, CEO of T.J. Regional Health, said the pandemic’s impact has also caused concern for the health group’s economic stability. Turnover in staff requires the use of expensive contracting services.
“As you could imagine, what’s occurred with that market is everybody in the country now needs those people because they’ve attritioned staff out,” Thornbury said. “The price for those people is about three or four times, which is not sustainable for any health system.”
The health organization received federal funding, and an approximate $500 bonus was provided to employees, Thornbury said. But contractors continue to cost the hospital a considerable amount of money.
Denise Billingsley, administrator of NHC Healthcare in Glasgow, echoed hospital administration’s challenges with staff retention.
“It truly has the potential to become a new crisis standpoint where we are rationing care,” Billingsley said.
Following the chilling revelations, magistrates voted to pass along $1 million to provide eventual retention pay to healthcare personnel in the county. An additional $500,000 was approved to fund healthcare education pipelines in hopes of remedying retention rates.
Carl Dickerson, magistrate, voiced support for the measure but not without concern. He said other groups should have a chance to petition the court for the money, too.
“Y’all would be on top of one of my lists of being the group that deserves the money, but there may be a group out there that hurts more,” Dickerson said. “I don’t know who it would be, but don’t we owe it to our community to look at everything before we make a decision?”
About 1,800 employees were estimated to be employed in Barren County’s healthcare sector. Dickerson asked who was included in the headcount, and several were not — employees of organizations like private practices, Graves Gilbert Clinic and the Medical Center at Caverna.
Dickerson was the lone voice of dissent. He shifted from his initial rationale and said he felt the court needed more information before voting to provide the retention pay.
“Sometimes there’s got to be finality to this. It’s not infinite,” Dickerson said. “Sometimes we’ve got to say this is it, and that’s all we’re going to do.”
Additional funding may be added to the measure. The final stipulations of the money’s expenditure are yet to be defined such as whether pharmacies, private practices and other health group’s employees would get a cut of the money.
