LEWISTON – Lorraine Langlois, 47, always wanted to be a nurse. As a teenager she volunteered as a candy striper at Central Maine Medical Center until her mother told her she needed to earn some money.

After college, Langlois became a nurse, a career she has now pursued for 29 years, mostly in nursing homes. She likes caring for the elderly. “They’re very special,” Langlois said Monday at d’Youville Pavilion nursing home where she works as staffing coordinator.

Today Langlois will be honored as one of the best nursing home caregivers in Maine, during a ceremony at the Augusta Civic Center.

She’ll receive the Excellence in Resident Care award, one of six recipients of the award statewide. Others recipients are from Gardiner, Portland, Lubec, Falmouth and Freeport. The award comes from the Maine Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, which represents nursing home patients, and from Maine Health Care, which represents nursing homes.

Criteria includes someone who is a direct-care giver in a nursing home and someone who exhibits a work ethic that promotes residents’ care and lives, said Brenda Gallant, executive director of the ombudsman program.

Langlois was chosen for several reasons. The biggest was her success in putting an end to the practice of d’Youville Pavilion using temporary staffing. Because of the difficulty of the work and low pay – statewide, certified nurses aides are paid between $8 to $9 an hour – there’s a shortage. Turnover is high. Most nursing homes are unable to operate without temporary staffing.

But, permanent staffing is preferred because the quality of care improves when caregivers know their patients, Gallant said. “We made a huge push to get rid of agency care completely,” said Sean Findlen, spokesman for the Sisters of Charity Health System, which owns St. Mary’s and the nursing home. “And if she saw there was a hole in staffing, she would come in and work that shift. She still works on the floor with patients,” Findlen said.

As staffing coordinator, Langlois is responsible for the schedules of 350 employees, 200 of whom are certified nursing assistants. She tries to schedule the same staff on the same units to help the CNAs get to know their patients. When the staff knows the patients, they’ll better understand why one woman is crying and another man is unhappy. Understanding comes, she said, “by getting to know them. That takes time.”

“I was just speaking to a resident who wanted to know where her husband went,” Langlois said, adding the man went home for the day. When she told the resident, “it made her cry. A lot is going on,” Langlois said. “You need to know what their needs are, and be able to meet their needs without them always being able to express them. Most of the time they cannot.”

As the ombudsman, Gallant said it is her agency’s job to be a watchdog for the care of patients, all 8,000 in Maine. But considering the difficulty of the work, it’s also important to give credit for good service, Gallant said.

“We don’t acknowledge the work of these people enough.” Nursing home residents are considered among the most vulnerable population. “They have a lot of needs,” Gallant said. “It’s estimated that 60 percent in nursing homes have cognitive impairment. You have to have a lot of skill to do this work best.”

Expected to present the awards at the Excellence in Resident Care Conference will be Maine Senate President Beverly Daggett, D-Augusta.

bwashuk@sunjournal.com

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