Damien Sheppard, Lansing, MI. Age 37, Damien has a degree in biochemistry, works as a lab manager in a plant biology lab, is an avid bicyclist, gardener and reader. He values the relationship with his clients, the flexibility that allows him to work around his lab job, and feeling that he is contributing to society in a meaningful way.
“Without me, [my client] would have a much lower standard of living…and his wife would have to go back to doing the home care. It wasn’t a tenable situation.” He says his client might have been able to stay at home for a short while but not for very long.
Damien worries about risk of client falls, inadequate wound care and grief when a client dies. He is an advocate of home care but laments the lack of resources. “An institution offers so many more resources. You have an RN on staff on call, a physician on call, all those things that help you get through sticky situations. In homecare, you gotta improvise a lot. You need to be the nurse and the doctor, and the floor manager…and figure all that stuff out as you go. The background that most of us have makes that difficult. An example is where you might have a small wound that if it’s not taken care of might fester into something where an infection could set in.”
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Damien would like to stay in homecare but eventually needs a job with a living wage so that he can plan for retirement. “You’ve gotta increase the pay, and that really needs to come from the state. Without that, it’s just not feasible. It’s not a tenable goal to increase the workload by what, 30,000 individuals? No. Without help from the state it’s just not possible because the work is rough, it’s really difficult, the pay is relatively low, the training isn’t great. Without that, it’s just not gonna work.”