Nevada home health aides to receive $500

Home health aide Irma Nunez begins caring for patients at 4 a.m., helping them to bathe and dress, picking up their prescriptions and groceries, and performing other tasks that allow them to live at home and maintain some independence.

One of her longtime patients, a quadriplegic school teacher, tells her, “you’re like part of my family,” Nunez said, giving meaning to work that pays her between $10 and less than $12 per hour.

She thinks about finding a job where, to make ends meet, she wouldn’t have to work seven days a week, sometimes into the evening. But she worries about her patients “Who else would take care of them?” she asks.

Nunez is one of nearly 9,000 home health workers in Nevada who will be receiving a one-time $500 supplemental payment through a new state program funded by federal pandemic relief money, according to Gov. Steve Sisolak’s office.

The payments, funded under the American Rescue Plan Act, will go to Medicaid home care workers on the front lines of the pandemic, Sisolak’s office said.

Sisolak met with Nunez in his Las Vegas office Monday, one in a series of conversations with members of Nevada’s front-line health care workforce. The meeting follows last week’s sign-off by the legislature’s Interim Finance Committee on the funding.

Home aides whose employers requested and received approval for funding should be receiving their payments by late March, said Meghin Delaney, a representative of the governor’s office.

Nunez said she’ll spend the money on new tires for her car, which she relies upon to crisscross the valley to visit the eight patients she cares for.

“When I don’t have a car, I’m like a chicken without a head,” said Nunez, 55, who doesn’t get paid time off or have employer-backed health insurance from the three agencies for which she works.

In his meeting with Nunez, Sisolak said the importance of home health aides, who serve as a lifeline for home-bound residents, became more evident over the course of the pandemic.

“I’m thankful and grateful that we have folks that are willing to do this,” Sisolak said.

Prior to the meeting, a member of the governor’s staff asked if anyone attending the meeting would like the governor to wear a mask. The governor, who on Thursday lifted the state’s indoor mask mandate, said moving forward, he will wear a mask if a request is made.

In June, Sisolak signed into law Senate Bill 340, which established the Nevada Home Care Employment Standards Board, tasked with developing recommendations regarding the wages and working conditions of home-care employees.

Nunez is a member of the board of SEIU Local 1107, a union representing health care and public employees, which lobbied for the legislation.

Sisolak said, “We need to do better, and the bill started us down that road.”

Nevada has more than 13,000 home care workers, predominately women and disproportionately minorities, who help older Nevadans and persons with physical or intellectual disabilities with daily tasks to remain independent in their homes, according to the governor’s office.

Contact Mary Hynes at mhynes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0336. Follow @MaryHynes1 on Twitter.