Inside The Wisconsin Veterans Home At King

 The thermometer hits 95 degrees and storms are rolling across Wisconsin. Winds are high and the rain is coming down thick and fast. And then, it happens, all the lights go out.

Losing power during a storm isn’t something new, but at King Veterans Home, located near Waupaca, WI, the loss of power created a situation that pushed an already overworked staff to the breaking point.

King Veterans Home is located on a beautiful plot of land next to the Chain O’ Lakes. However, the picturesque setting masks the troubling circumstances of staffing shortages & management cutting corners occurring at one of the primary veterans care facilities in the state of Wisconsin.

Staff at King are required to work mandatory overtime up to 40 hours each week, even as thousands of shift hours go unfilled. Reductions in staffing have created a situation where a few staff are responsible for care of an entire floor of more than 40 veterans.  

To compound staffing and work hour challenges, wages are so low at King that staff turn over continuously to take higher paying jobs in the private sector. To fill the vacancies of leaving staff, management has turned to staffing agencies that provide undertrained staff that are not invested in the work.

It is a credit to the hardworking full-time staff at King that it still delivers the high-quality care despite the hurdles placed in the way.

However, even the hard working staff was pushed beyond their limits during the power outages last week.

In the 95 degree heat, the power went out for more than a day at King. While there are generators on site for vital services, that did not include lights and air conditioning, leading to an extremely unsafe environment for staff and Wisconsin veterans.

The windows at King cannot open more than 3 inches on some floors for security reasons, so in the 95 degree heat, the building rapidly became stale, humid and unbearably hot. With the sun down and no lights, staff had to resort to headlamps to administer care – frightening patients with mental health conditions like PTSD and creating a care environment that felt more like a frontline battlefield hospital rather than an elegant care community in northern Wisconsin.

Staff, who had already worked 50 or 60 hours, were thrust into an impossible situation, attempting to care for upset and frightened patients in the dark as temperatures inside the building soared.

The difficulty of administering care for veterans is compounded by the lack of staff. King once had a waiting list for staff wishing to work there, now there are more than 100 vacant CNA position slots that are unable to be filled. Those vacancies are currently being filled by staff working up to 80 hours a week, or just are left unfilled, creating dangerous care situations for staff and veterans alike.

After more than 24 excruciating hours power was returned to King. However, for the hardworking staff who protected and cared for Wisconsin’s veterans, it was time to go home to houses that had suffered storm damage and were still without power.

After a short 8 hours of sleep, it would be time to head back to work and begin the process of returning King back to sense of normalcy.

However, for the workers at King, a return to normalcy isn’t an option. Up to 80-hour work weeks, poor pay, and a stinging sense of injustice (remember those temporary employees from the staffing agency – they make 50% more per hour than most full-time King employees) are not things employees deal with at normal jobs.

The power outage above is just one example of how the hardworking caregivers at King are working extremely hard to care for our veterans, but are receiving no help from the state government or Walker’s administration.

Over the past 6 years, employees at King have seen their wages cut, healthcare cut, and retirement cut due to Walker’s budget cuts. With wages shrinking, talented staff leave to take higher paying jobs in the private sector.

To compound staff difficulties, Walker’s Act 10 significantly limited the negotiating ability of King’s staff, so they can no longer ask management to improve safety, reduce work hours, or even ask to have a few weekends a month when they don’t have to work.

Walker’s great lie to the state of Wisconsin was convincing people that hard working employees of facilities like King were somehow taking advantage of the system. Those care professionals are now paying the price with jobs that pay very little and consume life’s most precious resource – time. Time away from their families and loved ones.

But, no matter how bad the staff has it, the real victims of Walker’s policy towards facilities like King will be our state’s veterans. They are the ones who will pay the biggest price if dramatic steps are not taken to improve the working situation for care workers at veteran’s facilities.

The story above needs to be told. Care providers, who protect our veterans, deserve better. Wisconsin’s veterans deserve better.