When we have enough staff on duty, we’re able to actually give our residents the care they deserve.
Keffer loves her profession.
For nursing home dietary aide Keffer Issac, her job is a labor of love. Keffer treats her residents as family. Seeing them smile puts a smile on her own face. Seeing them enjoy the food she serves brightens her day. The job isn’t easy, but Keffer pushes on, knowing that her work brings hope and joy to those around her.
Keffer works at Centinela Skilled Nursing & Wellness Centre in Inglewood. Like many nursing homes across California, Centinela West is dangerously understaffed. This creates an unnecessary burden on workers like Keffer, since she is often expected to do double or triple the amount of work she would normally have to. Again, Keffer loves her work. She loves knowing that residents see her the same way that she sees them: as family. She’s willing to go the extra mile for her residents. However, that impossible workload takes its toll, and Keffer, like many nursing home workers, often leaves her facility mentally and physically burned out.
“Just the other day, I had a resident ask me if I was okay,” says Keffer. “She could see how tired I was, and that I was clearly trying to do the work of two or three dietary aides all by myself. We need enough staff to make sure that no one has to rush while they’re caring for patients. When we have enough staff on duty, patients get the care they deserve.”
Keffer’s immigrant roots.
Keffer was born and raised on the island of Jamaica. It was there where she discovered her passion for caring for people. Before her mom died of a brain tumor, she’d gone blind from severe glaucoma. Keffer was her mom’s caregiver. Keffer also helped care for sick or aging neighbors who didn’t have any immediate nearby family. When Keffer immigrated to America in 2000, she knew exactly what she wanted to do: help care for people. She decided to try her hand at being a nursing home employee. Keffer found work as a dietary aide, and that’s been her calling ever since. She quickly learned that in addition to bare bones staffing levels, she and other nursing home workers feel the sting of an industry with very low wages and benefits.
And she knows that the two go hand-in-hand — it’s hard to attract and retain workers when the wages and benefits are so low.
“Gas is going up. Grocery prices are going up. Rent is going up. It’s ridiculous,” Keffer says. “I barely make enough to put food on the table, let alone be anywhere close to feeling secure in my finances. It feels like the whole system is broken, but especially the nursing home industry. Covid was a nightmare. We had so many people calling in sick with the virus, and everyone (including residents) was constantly on edge about catching it and potentially dying. The worst of the pandemic is over, but nursing homes are still feelings its effects; we’re nowhere close to recovering, and it’s made worse by the fact that we’re so understaffed because wages aren’t high enough to attract more people to the job. Something has to change.
Personally, I’ve been dealing with a lot of hardship. Today I have to scrape by with my home mortgage payments, and I know I can’t afford to fall behind. I remember thinking I need transportation, but I can’t afford a car, so I either walk or take the bus to places. Uber just costs too much. I actually take the bus to union meetings.
Also, my son is currently incarcerated, so I also have legal fees to cover. He’s not even in the state at the moment. He got shipped to Ohio, so that’s also been something I have to deal with. It’s a lot. It’s too much. But that’s why I’m pushing so hard for this new union contract: so that I can hopefully, someday, make enough to make ends meet without wondering if I’m gonna break the bank.
I’m constantly having to borrow from Peter to pay Paul. Just the other day, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to pay all my bills on time if I bought my usual list of groceries. So, I’ve cut down on what I buy at the grocery store. It’s constant hardship, trying to always figure out how to pay one bill without making it hard to pay the others. ”
Keffer is a passionate union advocate.
Affectionately known as ‘Mama K’ by her SEIU 2015 union family members, Keffer is fiercely proud to be a union member leader. She has spoken up at various union events, and is always helping to lead the charge in union bargaining negotiations with management. She is not only respected for her savvy and charisma, but Keffer is beloved for being something of a mother figure to her union family members.
“You know that union chant ‘When we fight, we win?’ Well, take it from me: the fight isn’t easy, but you have to be willing to speak up if you want to see real change,” says Keffer. “That’s why we were so willing to go on strike against the Brius facilities: because we knew that we’d only get the contract we deserve if we made our voices heard.”
These days, Keffer tries to find peace in seeing her kids and grandkids. Keffer deals with bouts of glaucoma and has undergone different procedures to address the issues, but she remains fiercely upbeat in her outlook on life. She draws strength from knowing exactly what she is fighting for: a future where the nursing home industry is the sort of place that puts people, not profits, first, and where workers are compensated well enough to draw more folks into the industry.
