Iowa Public Radio Spotlights Caregiving
Iowa Public Radio (IPR) broadcast a five-part series on caregiving with five-minute reports about paid caregiving, family caregiving, and volunteer caregiving in the home, nursing homes, and residential hospice care settings.
The Being in Iowa radio segments with Rob Dillard kicked off on February 4 with a feature about Lisa Davis, a certified nurse assistant and medication aide who is employed at a nursing home.
In the report, Di Findley, executive director of the Iowa Caregivers Association, says that “society still doesn’t accept this workforce as a profession.”
Noting that Iowa will need 15,000 more workers in the next five years, and citing direct-care workers’ low wages and poor benefits, Findley asks, “How do you recruit people to an industry that has an image problem?”
After the series wrapped up on February 8, Ben Keifer, host of the IPR’s River to River talk show, conducted more in-depth interviews on caregiving in Iowa with ICA Policy Consultant John Hale, Dilliard, Davis, and a family caregiver.
— by Deane Beebe
