Maine Voices: Effort to bolster health care can be ‘engine of opportunity’ for our state

Two current headlines starkly outline Maine’s future. The first heralded the Roux Institute’s bold plan to develop a glittering know-how heart on the B&M Beans web site alongside Portland’s waterfront, to grow to be an incubator for innovation, “an engine of alternative.” And a trigger for celebration.

The Mills administration has launched $146 million in state and federal funds to help the recruitment and retention of nursing dwelling staff in Maine – however assembly this problem will take a brand new mindset in addition to cash.  Dreamstime/TNS

This private-philanthropic funding within the metropolis and state is a brass ring chased by each civic chief in America today. It guarantees to lure new funding; appeal to and retain expert staff (particularly youthful ones), and juice up this nook of New England as a vibrant place to work and dwell for years to come back.

The second headline was a warning flag of what’s taking place now and what’s to come back. Three Maine nursing properties have closed, with extra closures imminent. In response to the Maine Well being Care Affiliation, the scarcity of staff is “crippling the power of long-term care services to satisfy the wants of residents.” This scarcity was looming lengthy earlier than COVID, however the pandemic has accelerated it right into a disaster.

Inside hours of the closure information, the Mills administration announced it could launch $146 million in state and federal funds to help workforce recruitment and retention. Lengthy overdue, that, too, is a trigger for celebration. It’s, nevertheless, not an answer. That can require greater than {dollars}. It requires a brand new mindset in Maine.

For need of a greater description, let’s discuss with the Roux Institute undertaking as “superstructure,” tangible proof that Maine can reel in excessive tech and massive bucks with the very best of them.

It’s additionally crucial that Maine – its elected officers, enterprise executives and civic leaders – sort out the state’s ailing employment “infrastructure” simply as aggressively because it’s constructing showplace “superstructures.”

And nowhere is the state’s employment infrastructure shakier than the struggling nonprofit well being care trade.

The scarcity of staff on this discipline exemplifies the underbelly of Maine’s economic system and demographics. Attracting, coaching and rewarding devoted caregivers is simply as vital to this state’s future as filling shiny new workplace towers and laboratories.

Maine is old. That’s not information. Some areas of Maine are actually previous. On Chebeague Island, the place I dwell, 1 / 4 of our year-round inhabitants is over 70, in response to the newest U.S. census. What we want – and what all of Maine wants urgently – is an incentive to design and implement an infrastructure that sees an getting older inhabitants as an “engine of alternative.”  An asset, if you’ll.

Maine is within the thick of a demographic disaster that quickly will overtake a lot of this graying nation. We’re merely forward of the curve. Why not seize the event to guide? To provide you with modern concepts that deal with the scarcity of caregivers in all places, offering incentives for coaching and development, guaranteeing livable wages and advantages and – whereas we’re at it – elevating the respect these caregivers deserve for the important position they play in our society?

We want them now. Quickly, we will likely be determined.

A public-private partnership that sees the wants of Maine’s getting older inhabitants as a laboratory, one that pulls ample analysis and know-how and comes up with a recreation plan, is as worthy of a celebration as a brand new campus on the the waterfront.

Maine already has assets to launch this worthy mission. For starters, even primary wants surveys should be undertaken. What’s the demand for care, and in what varieties (residential or in-home)? What would make this a lovely job (well being advantages, tuition subsidies, a profession ladder to make coaching “moveable,” thus enabling development)? What help do Maine’s elders really need and want (companionship, transportation, respite care)? These all are unknowns, however unknowns with solutions – if somebody takes the time to ask.

And, after all, the state itself should elevate the stakes with funding, management and political will. Make this a contest to provide you with modern concepts and options, simply as all of us have been promised by the Roux Institute’s new funding.

The chance to grab the nationwide highlight with packages and insurance policies that grow to be fashions for the remainder of this nation is there for the taking, a brass ring of one other type.  Maine has an opportunity to seize it and win.

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