Health assistants in Miami complain of not having protection against the coronavirus
Marlén Veliz arrived in Miami from Cuba five years ago, but two weeks ago she said she felt like she was back in her native island. Complaining about the lack of tools in her work to protect herself against COVID-19 was enough to get her fired.
Her experience is shared by hundreds of home health aides in Florida who, for fear of losing their jobs, stay quiet about employer abuse and appalling working conditions, experts say.
“I published a video on my social media accounts about how we had to stand in line to get gloves. At that time they did not even give us masks to work. The Caring Professional Services agency fired me as soon as they saw the post,” Veliz said.
“This is worse than in Cuba,” she said. “At least there people know there is no freedom.”
The Caring Professional Services agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment from el Nuevo Herald.
Veliz said that those in her field are working on the front lines of the pandemic and are at constant risk of exposure to COVID-19 due to the nature of their jobs among the most vulnerable. “Everyone talks about doctors and nurses, but we also take care of the sick. Many of our patients are elderly.”
In Miami, the average annual income for a Home Health Aide, known by the acronym HHA, hovers at about $24,000, according to official labor statistics.
“Agencies often sell you as a cleaning lady, when our job is to bathe patients and take care of them, not do housework,” said Veliz, who was paid $ 12 an hour for her services.
Being unemployed in the midst of the health crisis, she said, “has lowered my self-esteem, my state of mind. My nerves have been shattered. The saddest thing is that you can’t launch a complaint with anyone. You don’t matter to the patient, the family, the agency nor the government.“
Marisol Pardo, who has worked in at least five different agencies in Miami, said she has been through similar situations.
“The HHA has to clean the floor, make the food, do the laundry ... everything they ask of you. If you don’t, they call the agency and in less than a rooster’s crow you lose your job,” she said.
The 49-year-old has been working as an HHA since she immigrated from Cuba in 2010.
“This was the first job I was able to get and thanks to my work my family has been able to eat, but they don’t know the amount of tears I have shed,” she said. “Without paid vacations, health or dental insurance, without a 401K plan for old age... this is the job that nobody wants, what we immigrants do,” Pardo said. “Right now, with the coronavirus, we are exposed, many times working without a mask or gloves.
They ask us to buy our own protective gear,” she added. “How, if the salary is barely enough to pay the rent?”
Required masks and gloves are hard to find
According to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, known as AHCA, there are 314 Health Care Agencies in Miami-Dade, which provide work for HHAs. Aides are required to wear personal protective equipment on the job.
“When providers are administering care to patients and residents in their homes or at a healthcare facility, appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) must be used, including facemasks and gloves.,” AHCA said in statement. “If a provider has issues acquiring PPE or other necessary supplies through their usual supply chains and vendors, they should reach out to their local emergency operations center to assist with obtaining supplies. “
The Miami-Dade Health Department also said in a statement that, “it is the responsibility of employers to ensure that the appropriate guidelines are followed, and that personal protective equipment is made available.”
However, on the ground, the situation is more complicated, said Álvaro Flores, director of Neighborhood Home Health Services.
“Our agency tries to support HHA in every way we can. We have bought masks and other items at the market price. We also use social media and phone lines to keep our workers informed on the situation,“ she said.
“Right now, getting masks and gloves is very expensive and we have not received help from the government. They gave us a form to request supplies, but the hospitals have priority and they take all the help.“
“We buy things from Amazon but it takes weeks to arrive,” Flores said. “Also the payment system for our services has gotten complicated. All of this impacts the worker.“
Low wages and limited protection
For the sociologist Elaine Acosta, the situation of Home Health Assistants is extremely vulnerable.
“The lack of personal protective equipment to carry out their work, delays in payments and labor abuses such as threats and dismissals in the face of reporting situations, are some of the problems that these workers — most of them women — have had to face,” she said.
“These problems not only expose women workers to higher risks of contagion, but, at the same time, expose the most vulnerable people to the risk of being infected by their own caregivers, who can become a source of contagion,” Acosta said.
Official data indicates that women have been the most affected by losses in the labor market due to COVID-19.
These workers are finding themselves in a precarious situation “of job insecurity and social vulnerability characterized by low wages, low labor rights, little rest, little training, low associative level and little protection against abuse.”
This story was originally published April 23, 2020 at 7:06 PM.
