PARAMOUNT, Calif. — The pandemic cost one woman her dearest loved ones and her most stable source of income.
Progress Park in Paramount was a meaningful place for Martha Davila, a single mom who lives nearby. Her daughter went to school right around the corner, so Davila used to bring her mom, who was in a wheelchair, to the park to see her granddaughter.
“Coming to this park really revives a lot of memories,” Davila said.
On her phone is the last photo Davila has of her mom, who died in a hospital, alone, two days before Christmas. Coronavirus also took Davila’s older brother soon after.
The state’s In-Home Supportive Services Program paid Davila to be their full-time caregiver up until they had to be hospitalized. Both had diabetes and required multiple dialysis sessions every week.
This is a common, if not overlooked, frontline job many are doing from inside their own homes. A recent study from the AARP states, “More than 1 in 5 Americans (21.3 percent) are caregivers, having provided care to an adult or child with special needs at some time in the past 12 months. This totals an estimated 53 million adults in the United States.”
“We need more protection. We really need more protection,” Davila said.
When the coronavirus started to ravage her household, Davila was making her own masks out of old clothes. It didn’t work, and so she herself got the virus.
The union representing long-term care workers, SEIU Local 2015, is supposed to protect Davila. It has more than 400,000 members in California, including those who work in skilled nursing facilities and assisted living centers.
Since the union has a base in Long Beach, they recently pushed the city council to pass a resolution. Executive Vice President Dereck Smith said this is a promise to provide sick leave, hazard pay, and personal protective equipment, the lack of which was deadly.
“It is too little, too late, and this is why as a union, we have to continue to advocate for changes,” Smith said.
Smith said the union’s top priority is getting members and care receivers vaccinated. Davila already got her shots, which is always the first question she gets asked in interviews for her next job.
She still hasn’t been able to lay her loved ones’ ashes to rest.
“It’s kind of like you have a sunny day. All of a sudden, the clouds start to close up, and you have thunder on top of you,” Davila said.