‘BEACON OF LIGHT’
Driving Park treatment center aids neighborhood, beyond
When Felton Davis enrolled in the domestic violence program at the Africentric Personal Development Shop, he was embarrassed, ashamed and afraid. ● “I just felt like I broke the covenant with God when I put my hands on my wife,” said Davis, 60, of the Northeast Side. “I not only hurt her, but I hurt my kids. I lost their trust. I lost their loyalty. So, I’m working on it.” ● Now separated from his wife, Davis said he is learning coping skills and signs of unhealthy relationships. ● “For a long time, I didn’t know that I had an anger issue and controlling issue,” he said. “I’m glad (APDS) was there when I was looking. I would like to be a sounding board one day. Maybe I can help somebody or just be a mentor.”
Davis is one of the many people who have walked through the doors of APDS, a longstanding, affordable behavioral health care center that opened in 1988 on the Near East Side and relocated to Driving Park in the late ‘90s. The facility has helped 22,000 families affected by drug and alcohol addiction and domestic violence, according to CEO Jerry Saunders.
Funded primarily by the Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Board of Franklin County, APDS has an annual budget of $1.3 million. The treatment center specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy, acknowledges past trauma, considers the impact on the client’s entire family, and provides culturally competent care.
“The majority of our clients are court-referred, but we see any and everybody,” said Saunders, 68, of Pickerington. “It’s a holistic approach. We want to find out, ‘What happened to you that got you to this point?’”
In the meantime, nursing facilities must wait. But did the prospect of a mandate coming into effect change anything in Ohio?
Increasing vaccinations
Biden’s rule would tie vaccine mandates to funding for Medicaid and Medicare, government health insurance programs. Virtually all nursing homes rely on that money. The goal is to boost vaccination numbers among staff working with nursing home residents.
“Today’s action addresses the risk of unvaccinated health care staff to patient safety,” said Chiquita Brookslasure, director of the federal Medicare and Medicaid agency, when issuing the rule on Nov. 4.
There is anecdotal evidence that the rule prompted some nursing home workers to get inoculated.
About 36% of staff at Crandall Medical Center, a nursing facility in Mahoning County, was unvaccinated before the mandate, CEO David Mannion told lawmakers during testimony on an Ohio vaccine bill. Ten percent “begrudgingly” took the shot afterward.
“I think that the vaccine mandate has served a purpose,” he said.
But the rest are either still seeking exemptions or outright refusing, said Mannion, and losing them is only going to hurt during a pandemic that has already exacerbated staffing shortages.
Statewide, when Biden first raised the mandate idea in late August, 56% of Ohio’s nursing home workers had already received their first doses, per data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of Nov. 21, that number was almost 65%.
The 9% increase in nursing home worker vaccination rates may have nothing to do with the Biden requirement. The rates had been climbing 2.5% to 3.5% each month from midjune to mid-november.
Some patient advocates say that any staff vaccination increase is a good thing and reduces the risk of infection for vulnerable residents.
“As the new variants are emerging, Ohio facilities cannot let preventable problems be repeated. The key is to increase vaccinations, and do it now,” AARP Ohio previously said in a statement.
Statewide, when Biden first raised the mandate idea in late August, 56% of Ohio’s nursing home workers had already received their first doses, per data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of Nov. 21, that number was almost 65%.
Worries to come
Since the requirement was proposed, Ohio hasn’t seen any mass resignations of nursing home staff that some feared, said Van Runkle. He suspects the roughly 35,000 unvaccinated folks still on the job are waiting to see what happens with the mandate.
After more court rulings and appeals, the vaccination rule could still be given the green light to resume. In that case, facilities would have more time to try to get all workers vaccinated. That’s still a tall order.
“The problem is when you say it’s got to be 100%” vaccinated, said Van Runkle. “A good percentage of their staff weren’t vaccinated and still aren’t vaccinated when the rule was published.”
Unlike Biden’s vaccine requirement for large businesses, there is no COVID-19 testing alternative, and exemptions are very limited.
Van Runkle said nursing homes can’t afford to lose more than 5% of their staff and still maintain the quality of care.
In the worst case scenario where more people aren’t vaccinated and the mandate is in full force, it’ll be a “slow bleed” of staff leaving, said Van Runkle.
Enforcing the mandate would take time. Federal authorities plan to give facilities time to comply and then search for violations by surveying facilities.
What nursing home groups hope is that the Biden rule gets thrown out, and that could happen. When pausing the rule, multiple judges questioned whether the president had the constitutional authority to issue it. Ultimately, the future is unclear. “It’s just a real hot mess right now,” said Van Runkle.