OHCA The Oregon Caregiver Fall/Winter 2019

www.ohca.com FALL/WINTER 2019 The Oregon Caregiver 9 FEATURE One of the best programs they have at the college, Rotz said, are the nursing programs. “For several years, we have collaborated with the college to serve as a CNA clinical training site. Then we also serve as a clinical training site for their nursing students. Up until this year, the nursing program had been only every other year, because they didn’t have the faculty,” she said. Rotz said that four or five of their current CNA staff are enrolled in the registered nurse program. “Our goal and hope is that they continue to stay and work here in our center,” she said. Unfortunately, not all of the staff enrolled end up making their careers at Curry Village. “What happens frequently is that they want to have a broader experience and they end up moving out of the area. The biggest migration out of Brooking is typically over to Medford, and sometime down to California,” Rotz said. Because Oregon isn’t a compact state, Rotz sees this as being an obstacle for recruiting out of area. “It makes the transferability easier if your state is in the compact,” she said. “It is an obstacle because we are five miles from the California border, but a California nurse can’t practice in Oregon until they get an Oregon license. That can take, a minimum of six to eight weeks to get an Oregon nursing license,” Rotz said. Also, some of the staffing concerns in Brookings mirror the problems in Wheeler. “People are inspired to move to the Pacific coast of Oregon and then ‘A’ their license isn’t good until they actually get one (an Oregon license) and ‘B’ when they start really researching it, they find out it isn’t really affordable to live here,” Rotz said. For those who do make caregiving their career, the personal rewards are bountiful. One giant success story is that of Sharon Faulk. Currently the Oregon regional nurse consultant of Avalon Health, Faulk has been a registered nurse for 47 years with 43 of those years dedicated to geriatric nursing. “Initially, I was going to be a schoolteacher. Then I got an opportunity, I call it an opportunity…that sounds a little strange, but my grandmother was dying. I was fortunate to stay with her for about a month until she died. When I came back from that, I decided I wanted to change my focus and become a nurse,” Faulk said. After schooling and the start of her career as a nurse, Faulk decided she wanted to work in long term care. “I really enjoyed what I was doing, but I really wanted to work with the geriatric population. So I went and took a position as a charge nurse at a facility right by Good Samaritan hospital,” she said. When the director of nurses left unexpectedly, Faulk, in her early 20’s, was placed into the role. “I went into a facility as a director of nursing that didn’t have any policies and proce- dures. I had 100 patients. 30 needing some kind of skilled care and the remainder were what we called our immediate care population. I was 25 at the time and all of my nurses were 50 and above. You can imagine what they thought when they looked at me. Like, ‘This young individual is going to tell me what to do?’ The first year was a struggle,” she said. Faulk said, “I learned very quickly you don’t get respect just because you have the title. You earn it.” “Three years later, I’ll never forget, a nurse who was 62 at the time, looks at me and says, ‘Thank you. I’ve learned more from you than anyone I’ve worked with.’ At that point, it made it all worthwhile,” she said. “Being in the director of nursing role, I not only got to be in nursing, but I also got to teach a lot, so I got the best of both worlds.” Each day that Faulk has worked in the care industry, since the late 60s, she has had unique experiences. “I’ll never forget one woman I took care of when I was the director of nurses. She was always going around looking for a baby to deliver. At that point she was classified as senile dementia, but now it would be called Alzheimer’s. She really, really thought she could deliver babies. That’s what she always wanted to do in her life and it may not have been a dream that came true, but as she got older, it was in her mind. She always brought a smile to my face,” she said. Another memorable patient Faulk had was during her early years as a nurses’ aid in Hood River. “We never knew how old she was, and who her direct descendants were, but I remember she was a beautiful, beautiful woman, and she has the most beautiful, long, black hair. There was a set routine that we would do every day in braiding her hair. We’d bring her two glasses of water, a warm glass and a cold one. The cold was for her to drink and the warm was to braid her hair,” she said. Regardless of the challenges and struggles of finding staff, the special people who make the long term care industry their career choice are rewarded with a depth of rich and meaningful stories and the joy of helping those in need. As a larger popula- tion comes to need care, it is evident that more and more compassionate workers, with a true calling for caregiving, will be needed. “Frankly, it’s just a borderline crisis issue in our community. We have in excess of 40 employees at the care center in Wheeler, the second largest employer in North County after the local school district, but literally, none of the people who work at the care center or the Rinehart Clinic, which is next door, live in Wheeler. Almost everybody has to commute 20 miles or more.” – Marc Johnson, Board President, Nehalem Bay Health District