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WCA Home Facing Crisis As Deadline Nears

Six employees at the WCA Home have said that Oct. 7 will be their last day at the facility. File photo

FREDONIA — Fredonia’s WCA Home on Temple Street is bracing for the loss of almost one-third of its staff on Oct. 7 due to a New York state mandate that all of its workers must be vaccinated by that date.

In a letter to the OBSERVER and a Facebook post, the assisted living facility notes that with a worker shortage, some of the residents living there will have to be displaced. “With no other choice, we have begun the process of preparing discharge plans for half of our population,” said Christine Davis Mantai, president of the WCA Home board of directors. “This is painful and heartbreaking to them and us. We are working with the county Office for the Aging and the State (Department of Health) to conduct this surgery as efficiently as possible and in accordance with all laws protecting the elderly in these situations. For this reason, we decided to alert our families and seek other placements for them in other facilities as soon as we knew the impact of the vaccine mandate on our staff.”

Mantai said six unvaccinated employees have served notice that Oct. 7 will be their final day. This will leave the facility — currently the home of 22 elderly people — without adequate staff to meet state guidelines for providing care for their needs.

“Playing ‘chicken’ with the state is what we call sitting on our hands and doing nothing in hopes that the crash of our workforce on Oct 7 will never happen,” she said. “We cannot play that game and leave our families and residents in the dark with no time to make sensible arrangements for finding a place where they can get the care they need. We also cannot risk being out of compliance with New York state rules and regulations for operating our programs.”

Mantai acknowledges the facility is the first to go public with a plan that attempts to manage the loss of staff. Other county locations may follow suit. Currently, the organization is advertising for positions with little luck so far.

“Financially, we are stable and able to continue,” she wrote. “What’s missing is the person who does the work of caring one-on-one with the residents. The underlying problem that predated the vaccine mandate is that we cannot find people to hire and take the place of people who leave. There is a lack of qualified people in our area who will take the jobs we are offering. They are not answering ads, and not coming to interviews. It’s not unusual at all for a person to undergo all the hiring phases of getting a physical and being placed on the schedule, and then deciding not to come to work after all. This hiring crisis has been building in our area (all other homes will agree) since before the pandemic. ”

Mantai said the organization offers employees a health care plan, gave them ‘hero pay’ during the worst of the pandemic, and have instituted wage increases three times this year. “No one makes less than $15 per hour here,” she said. “Our board has approved a retirement benefit package for the first time.

“The results have not been encouraging. Our managers work extra night shifts to make up for the people we cannot hire. Our residents are frail and dependent. Their children are senior citizens themselves. These are the people who bear the burden of this moment. It is a crushing scenario from every direction you look.”

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