Home care nurses like me deserve better pay. Increase funding for NC’s PDN program.

Welcome to NC Voices, where leaders, readers and experts from across North Carolina can speak on issues affecting our communities. Send submissions of 300 words or fewer to opinion@newsobserver.com.

NC must take care of caretakers

The writer is a licensed practical nurse with BAYADA Home Health Care.

My job as a home care nurse is so much more than a profession. I know I can make approximately $15 more per hour working in a hospital or nursing home, but my big heart keeps me in home care.

I can’t leave my clients, but the current situation makes life so much more stressful. Missing one hour of work means I might not be able to pay my bills that month.

I know many nurses who have a passion for keeping people at home, but have had to make the heartbreaking decision of working where they can earn more. It makes sense — they have to provide for their own families. But it’s a shame, because as nurses leave home care for better-paying jobs in facilities, families that rely on North Carolina’s private duty nursing (PDN) program suffer because they can’t access the home nursing care they need.

I’ve dedicated my life to helping medically-fragile children and adults live as normal a life as possible, and now almost 2,000 N.C. families that rely on the PDN program are at risk. With an increasing shortage of home care nurses, these vulnerable individuals are forced to risk their safety with no care at all — or must find care in the emergency room or a long-term facility.

The wages that in-home nurses make in North Carolina aren’t proportional to the work we do.

We need North Carolina to recognize the value of in-home nurses by increasing state funding for the PDN program. Lawmakers can make this happen by ensuring that they vote to include a $5.8 million increase in the upcoming budget.

North Carolina residents who rely on PDN care to stay safe at home among their loved ones can’t wait any longer: The deadline for budget decisions is this month. The state needs to take action now to ensure there are enough in-home nurses for these individuals and their families.

Michelle Crance, Shelby

NC must support Oyster Blueprint

The writer is a N.C. lawyer who also owns and operates shellfish leases on the Newport River in Carteret County.

Coastal water quality is headed in the wrong direction. Frequent rains transport bacteria, nutrients and sediment into our estuaries where I grow oysters for your dinner table.

All too frequently oysters can’t be harvested for weeks after it rains until polluted runoff is purged by tides. Even worse, increasing temporary harvest closures are on top of the shocking 34% of the state’s shellfish waters where harvest is permanently prohibited.

My family grows oysters in the Newport River near Morehead City. Our ability to harvest oysters faces an uncertain future because of this chronic pollution. The river is one of the state’s most commercially important, and at the same time, one of the most endangered shellfish growing areas. With the help of my law practice in Beaufort, I try to keep my shellfish farming heritage alive by seeking out better ways to maintain water quality.

The new Oyster Blueprint (www.ncoysters.org) establishes a goal to grow shellfish landings more than five-fold by 2025 to $45 million. This can only be accomplished by devising and carrying-out effective watershed management plans that reduce polluted runoff. I am working to help create such a plan for the Newport River so our shellfish farming business is no longer handicapped by pollution.

Investing in the actions outlined in the Oyster Blueprint will result in cleaner water, more productive coastal fish habitats, more sustainable jobs (especially in rural areas), more fresh, local oysters at your favorite bar, and more resilience for our vulnerable coasts in the face of climate change and increasingly severe storms.

The Oyster Blueprint’s only real opponent is inaction. Don’t let that happen. I urge the North Carolina General Assembly and the governor to support key actions in the Blueprint.

Stevenson Weeks, Beaufort