can share their experiences with providers. they pondered increasing federal and got -- involvement. it was the first hearing in more than 20 years focusing on assisted living. they talked about safety, staffing, and pricing. this wasn response to recent articles in the "washington post." and on their website, a recent story looking at assisted care, looking at residents wandering away unnoticed and dying in the process. it says the fedel government does not regulate the nation's roughly 30,000 assisted care facilities as it does nursing homes. instead, it falls to individual states, and it requires strong training. the nursing home population is

1.2 million, and assisted living is approaching that at one million. we will show you portions of this hearing. perhaps you have had experiences with assisted living, caring for a loved one, or a nursing home, and you want to share those. you can call (202) 748-8000 for eastern and central time zones. mountain and pacific time zones, (202) 748-8001. for caregivers (202) 748-8002. ,you can post on facebook. we already got a response on facebook from sharon, giving he experience, saying when it comes to experiences, there is not enough staff in high turnover. many residents in assisted living need memory ce, and many are bored.

it is expensive and quality overall is not that good. the senators heard from a woman who detailed the conditions of the assisted living facility that she put her husband in who was suffering with dementia. here is a portion of that testimony from yesterday. [video clip] >> pour facility design, lots of tv in the central room, extremely loud, which can easily agitate dementia patients. there was various length of pvc pipe, some longer than a baseball bat. these were weaps in waiting, and you can guess what happened. there was no quiet areother than the rooms. the hallways in the room blocks were isolated, making it difficult to monitor.

i witnessed many incidents with no staff around. i sure one that i feel was important. a woman fell by tripping on a raised area on the floor, hd flooring, and nobody saw her fall. i found her bloody and staggering down the hallway. a company knowledgeable about dementia care would not design a facility this way. th would understand that people with dementia and have problems with gait and balance. they were video cameras but they were only used for reviewing incidents after the fact. they were understaffed. too many patientss were assigned to each caregiver. every morning, the caregivers had to get the patients up and dressed and out to breakfast. it put addional pressure on staff. they only give residents a shower when necessary, as they re always pressed for time. they need extra time for

residents in more advanced stages of dementia, those needing more advanced health care and to be fed. they worked getting the advanced stage patients into bed while others were in the main room. every day after lunch, my husband urgently needed to empty his bowels. i tried to help him several times, but it was difficult for me because i had a broken arm at the time. i cannot findnybody, soy did the best i could. -- so i did the best i could often en i was not there, he soiled himself. i once believed i saved a man's life. i was with my husband in room off the main activity area and hed someone crying for help. i ran to the hallway and found an old man on the floor trying to protect himself from being beaten with his own came from another resident. i called for hel quickly moving closer and redirecting the attacker's attention.

i kept him busy whilcalmly calling for assistance, trying not to agitate him. it took several minutes before a staff member finally heard me and came to help. host: more of that testimony on c-span.org and our c-span now app. call in to share experiences ke the witness ge her others. we he a line for carivers (202) 748-8002. ,that is whe sean is coming in -- calling in from northern new york. good morning. caller: good morning. i d not expect to get on so quick. host: you are on now. caller: thank you very much. i do not call in much do these kind of programs, but i have a lot ofears o bacround of spending a lot of time in nursing homes. my wife and i have spent a lot of time doing nursing home ministry.

we took care of my mother-in-law,he passed away a a few months ago at 89 years old. she lived with us for a couple of years, on and off, or than that, but the last couple of years. so in this industry, i have seen a lot of issues and pblems. i was wondering if you might want to asme a question. host: as far as iues and problems, what have you seen? caller: biggest problem, i believe, is the tremenus cost. people are losing their life sangs for people in our fami, number one. one thing i will say, in our country, we have a problem where we do not care for our parents, our grandparents, our elderly, and we are chasing the dollar willather than sacrificing our lives for tho we should be caring for. host: when you are caring for your own loved one, how did cost impact you? caller: well, because my wife

parents plan for tir later years, we were able to pay for part of that care. but at the same time, 24/7, we were the ones there. i am not giving myself a goldstar. we are in aituation where i our culture, numr one, we do not respect and reverence our elderly. the government causes more ouble than it does at solving the problem. they nursing homes, one of the biggest problems in nursing homes, not just for me but coming from rn's, a lady that works hospice, 30ears administrator in a nursing home, undersffed, understaffed, understaffed. we have a disintegrati system where people are -- like that one lady just listen to, it is a really tough situation. again, i am doing my part and

like to help wherever i can. whenever i am in a nursingome, spending time in the nsing home, let me tell you, my dais in the va hospital right now, he is getting the most top-noh care in that hospital, amazg. i do not say that lightly, and i know there's a lot of problems in v.a. homes. homes, in general. my brother took care of him for about seven years and finally did not do it anyme. god, last summer after all the doctors had written my father off and said he was going to pass away, but god had different pls and my dads still alive today anis getting top-notch care in thava home. host: thank you forharing your periences. that is why we have this caregiver line. (202) 748-8002. you can share those experiences, like sean did. we also have lines for eastern and central time zones and mountain and pacific time zones. our next call.

caller: my fath just recently passed away last month, but he wain a nursing home for about o and a half years. the same, just like thlast caller and the lady that spoke on capitol hill. i mean, it was just the lack of -- they cannot get anyone for their help. the on time it smed like he would get assistance, i would have to go up there two, 3, 4 times a week. and when i was around, i would see them hurrying. he also suffered from dementia. but in the beginning, when he first go there, it was horrible. they would say, push the button, push the button, we will come. i was in the room with him at times just to test their theory and pushed the button, and it would still take 20, 30, 40 minutes because someone was

using the restroom. if i was not there to assist him, he would end up soiling himself. same thing all the time. and towards the end, they would say, oh, we tell him to push the button, he cannot remember how to push the button. he cannot even turn the tv on, let alone push the button. and they say we check on him every so urs, and there were plenty of times where we would get the call, we found her father on the floor so wead to rush him to the hospital, this and that. and then the cost each year. the last year, we had two increases of over $700. they said it was to help give better 401k or for the people they had there so they could retain them. i could not believe they wrote this in a lter as they -- went

up $1400 in one ar for his care, nothing special, not an extr ward or more care, just to help fund the 401(k) for the associates that they had. it is just that they are understaffed. it is very expensive. it bleeds families dry. host: that was paul in ashburn, virginia. al in msachusetts, you are next. caller: first off, it is about how much money that you make. if you made big money in life, say a millionaire or something, you are going to get a luxury type nursing home where you go to and it will be staffed to the brim because you'll be paying more, one and a half times, twice as much money. so you will have way more people comi to help you, trash, go to the bathroom, whatever, whatever

activities. it is an example. my aunt broke her hip about three months ago, four months ago, six weeks that she died. why? because she hardly ever left the bed. nobody came. no operation because she was poverty level, most of her life did not make much money. she hardly ever left the bed. she was left in the bed almost all day long. i never even got to say goodbye to her because i live almost 500 miles away in massachusetts and she lived in northern maine. but she was just left die. and here is another story, too, i am 66 years old. i was born in canada, and my mother and father, both of them

were born in the united states. and because i was borin canada, i had to go to the hospital, i was sick six months ago, seven months ago, the social security sent that i was born in canada, they sent the paperwork to the insurance company -- i had to stay overnight because they did cat scans and m.r.i.'s. i get a paper in the mail a month later, im an illegal alien, so now i do not have health care. i am over 66 yrs old. and they tell me that i owe almost $,000. ok, this is the kind system we have got. i have lived here almy life. host: that is al in massachusetts. you can share your experiences. (202) 748-8000 for eastern and central time zones.

mountain and pacific time zones, (202) 8-8001. caregivers (202) 748-8002. ,at the end of last yr, gallup did a poll lookg at nursing homes, asking americans to grade the quality of care. on 8% of those would say that the quality is excellent -- saying it is good, 33 percent saying satisfactory, 36% saying it is poor, 6% saying it is a failure when it comes to the quality of care. this is a question about thinking f yourself in the future, if y are no longer able to care for yourself, how comfortable would you be in a nursing home. only 1 said they would be somewhat comfortable, 12 percent saying neither very comfortable or somewhat comfortable, 29% saying somewhat uncomfortae, and 41% saying for themselves,

if they had to have that oion of being in a nursing home, they would be very uncomfortable with that experience. perhaps you have experiences with nursing homes or assisted care facilities, you want to talk about that. senators took a look in a hearing yesterda about quality care, focusing on assisted care facilities, but you can expand that to nursing hos. this is ellen in florida, a caregiver. thank you for calling. caller: i heard that last night, that hearing. my mom is 95, and she is in excellent health because she swam two miles a day her whole entire life. but now she has severe dementia, so she needs literally 24-hour care. so i am just saying a shout out to what we do, we keep her home and pay individuals to watch her 24 hours a day.

she gets excellent care. because in tho facilities, as you have heard -- i am also a nurse -- you do not get that kind of care. however, it costs 12 thousand dollars a month, and we cannot even continue to do that. i sold her house a couple years ago, got a good price for it. i said, well, good, we will be able to take care of her. it is gone. you go through hundreds of thousands of dollars very quickly and for each elderly person. i do not understand, what is the system to even do this successfully? host: in your state, are you required to sell assets and things like that, as far as costs are concerned when someone is in a facility like that? caller: absolutely. they have to have absolutely not a penny left. they have to have not and penny left. even when you sell the house, that does not help because we

had to take the house out of her name first. if you sell it and it is still in the person's namethey are not going to get any help from the state. but when you do get help from the state, you getting something like $1300 a month. however, the cost of the facility is over $10,000 a month. in the facility, they get that $10 from the state, but you still have to come up with thousands and month. host: what are the costs you are paying now to have your mom at home versus what you were paying in a facility? caller: excellent question. at home, we are paying $12,000 a month. we have individual people coming in, private caregivers, certifd aides, people for overnight. and we pay the directly.

about $12,000 a month. host: best to you and your family. ellen telling her story about being a caregiver. senators hearing about situations associated with long-term health care, whether at a assisted facility or perhaps a nursing home the numbers are there if you want to share your experiences or comment on it. alabama, this is from bobby. bob, go ahead. caller: yes, i am hearing the same story here. i am trying to get my volume down here, just a second. i have a sister in assisted living here. and the problem is i am hearing the same thing over and over. understaffed, and some people care and some do not. we go there just yesterday, sister has dementia and has

enough to pay assisted living. right now, the assisted living cost is around 6000 dollars a month. and you go there -- yesterday, they asked if some of the family members could come and sit with her, some in the morning and some in the evening. well, we all 80 -- i will be 80 this year. my sister is already 81. and the family members have failing health ao, so who can go and sit with her? you are paying them to do that. some, their attitude, if you ask for assistance, you go in and find your loved one sitting in their urine and feces. that is not exaggeration, sir. that is true. she is in assisted living and is supposed to be able to use the bathroom, but now she is getting to where she cannot assist.

she needs to be in a nursing home, which is actually about the same. so i have a good friend in a nursing home and i was there yesterday, and he was complaining about i heard a gentleman calling, someone saying something about their mother just lying in the bed all day -- they do not have enough staff to get them up. he was complning, asking, can you see if you can get them to give me a shower, please, a bath? his mind is good, but he is not able to assist in any way. and i do not know the answer to this. i go in and took some pictures, the bathroom was filthy in the nursing home i went to, just really fthy. so i took some pictures of the commode, the condition it looks in, that it was in. but you say something to them, and then i must say, some of themill go the extra 10 miles and some won't do the mile.

so i think one thing, the people that is running it, they need to have a better check on the people that are supposed to be doing their jobs. i justo not know the answer. i look at some of them, i go in, some are in a hurry t maybe get to where they can take a break. sometimes the odors, it is just a stench, where they have not gotten around to changing them and some are waiting to use the bathroom. they push the button. it is a situation i just do not know the answer to, sir. we must find a way. and family members just cannot afford it. if you have anything, you must get it out of their name. one thing i'm going to say and i will be through, when i look at all the people coming into the united states that are having

problems and we are giving them moneys, then we should somehow -- the government should help take care of the citizens here, the veterans and the people that are sick. they are creating another slum with people and coming from all these countries, i just do not understand what is happening. host: that is bobby in alabama sharing his experience. you are welcome to do the sam some oyou posting on social media and sending message too. tracy says i have workein some of these, there are some that are good os andome i would noput anyone in. michelle from pesyania saying this is heartbreaking. i had advice from a doctor when i had to put my father in long-term care, try to find a place close to you as youmark i worked in one for 15 years i hope i die before i amorced to live in one you are at the mercy

of the caregivers, adding there are hidden cameras in all rooms/bathroom/shower room you can comment on facebook, facebook.com/cspan. on x, it is @cspanwj. a poll asked, what are the primary reasons y would not want to be admitted to a nursing home? 70% said they were conceed about the quality of care, 49% saying too expensive, 45% saying they were concerned it would have a negative effect on mental and emotional health,4% sing they were concerned about a loss of indendence. maureein californi we are hearing from those about long-term health care, your experiences with it. hello. caller: hello, good morning. i just wanted to let you know that i was in assisted living for three years.

and at $5,000 a month. and as i saw my income and my savings dwindling and the care was horrible. now, we were evacuated twice with fir and sent to a facility in connection with the place i was in. the place i was in is nation-wide, so i'm not going to mention the na of it. anyway, we we evacuated to another facility, and we were sleeping on dirty mattresses with one blanket, no heat in the room. we went through that for 28ays , at $5,000 a month, if you can believe it. and on top of that, the care was really bad. the food was bad. you do not get better in a facility like that. but i decided one day after

three year that that was it, cause we were locked up also, you know, during covid, cannot see anybody, cannot leave the room. cold food was delivered three times a day. i mean, it was just a nightmare, so i checked myself out. d now am in a nice little apartment, one-bedroom, with my low income now because i g rid of all my savings, and i am so happy. i am so happy. i love where i am in mill valley , and i just wanted to let you know about that experience. and what i have told all my friends who are in their 80's, like i am, the thing is, please save enough money so you can have somebody come to the house. it does not have to be 24/7, but just somebody that can come in and help you. the only thing i cannot do is clean the house, but i do my own coing. somebody takes me out for

shopping because i cannot drive or anything, but i am the happiest person no host: maureen, thank you for calling and sharing those experiences. a caregiver in st. louis, missourimonica caller: h goomorning. i am here to probably give some answers more thanuestions, been in this field forver 20 years. even before the pandemic, i seen that there were some issues going on. they talking about the cagivers and say assisted living, they all a mess. i have worked in a wealthy one charging 15,000 to $20,000, and i have worked in one that charges $5,000. what i do know is the owners, the administrator they are making all the money, getting all the bonuses. maybe if they spread some of that money out, you could get staffing. everybodtalking about staffing.

well, people working somewhere, but they stop working because the pay is not good. congress needs to do some kind of rulatio on staffg requiremen, federal and state needs to come in and give some staffing requiments and let them know that if they don't get that staffg up -- do what you t to do. give the staffing people some bonuses or whatever, or the dietarpeople. but it is really ridiculous. almost like the wall street cash cow that is going on. you have these owners, they itching names after they get shut down. it is the meerson,t is their family members. i am by no means a person that has any issues, i am africaamerican, so i don't have any issues with race or immigration,ut a few -- very few of the owners or en american. i don't know if they can send

something around the world and say start a long-term care facility in america and you n come a millionaire. host: given your expience, on average, for those peoplwho work in assisted ling or a nursing home, generally, how well are they paid? caller: i think it is really bad, really bad. they are making the same as some of the people at mcdald's. mcdonald's and, you know, it is bad. and that is why you don't have the care. i id, 10 years ago, they got paid more decent. the cost of living is going up, and everything is going up. nurses, cna's, owners, administrars. host: monica in missouri giving her assisted -- her perspective on assisted living and nursing homes, and the issue of staffing came about that hearing yesterday.

the was a back-and-forth between one of thsenators and some of the workers about the need for more staff in these type of facilities. here is a portion of that from yesterday. [video clip] >> i read we will need an additional 7 million long-term caregivers of ese eldercare facilities. that seems like a shocking estimate to me. hard to imagine how we cld possibly hire millions of additional people per year at these facilities, giving their already existing labor shortages. do you think that estimate is within the reasonable range? if it is not, how many more workers do we need over the next five to 10 years? >> thank you for the question, senator vance. i have not heard 7 million, i have heard 5 mlion. but i will follow up and give you the information i have. we got hit by e pandemic really hard. health care workers left and are never coming back. we have had to recover.

assisted living has recovered pretty well. but we also need to do is to build for the aging -- the workforce is aging out and our seniors are aging, and we're doubling and tripling numbers when we geto 2040 and 2050. having an intense effort for recruitment and pain, let me share what we're doing, from a recruitment standpoint, we were able tget really creative. we looked at people and said, what do you need, what will help cover your household? what do you need with increased wages? you can have the right methodology that allows you to pay minimum we. then we looked at

>> if you are going to commit, you also neat to create in having a workforce thats continuing to be passionate. have a living wage and want to say. hannah: more of that hearing that's available for you -- available for you to watch at our weite c-span.org and our app at c-span now. hear from kay. kay in chicago. caller: hi. thanks so much for letting me speak. i have been listening to alt comments.

pretty much all the comments are legitite. and taken together i think, you know, the whole model could be changed. to a more -- to a better model. for instance, monica from missouri. she hit the nail on the head when she pointed out the fact that long-timeare is now a big business. it's now -- it now has the hands of very big money people in the business. nothing good is going to come out of that. there's

-- it is not for profit, that is not the purpose.

the puose is to care for the veterans. the purpose is to not make a profit for shareholders. that is the whole problem. the other piece is society's attitude in the country toward elderly people. it is hard to be an elderly senior in america. you are stigmated, thrown out, you are not a valued at all. every facet of society from the younger generations, dorrell and families, but also employers and doctors. america is a hard place the a senior and it is disgraceful. two things have to go on.

our opinion about old people and seniors and value at the contributions they make to us -- and the contributions they make to us have to change. sen. brown: -- host: thank you for calling. christopher in michigan, you are up next. you are on, go ahead. call: i would likto thank all of you who work for c-span, you do good work every day. thank you. host: go ahead. caller: to answer your question, for me --