Opinion: Saluting mission-driven caregivers in Connecticut’s nursing homes

Hartford Courant – Tuesday, August 11, 2026
By Mag Morelli and JP Venoit

Mag Morelli is president of LeadingAge Connecticut and Rhode Island. JP Venoit is president of Masonicare and board chair of LeadingAge Connecticut and Rhode Island.

There have been some challenging news stories about the staffing and accountability of Connecticut’s nursing homes lately. We welcome the conversation that has come from this, and we share the goal behind it: every resident in every Connecticut nursing home deserves excellent, compassionate care, and every facility should be held to that standard.

The mission-driven members of our association are never finished improving, and they never will be. But we also want to recognize those who already set a standard: the amazing people who staff our nursing homes; the people who have chosen to work in this field because it is a calling.

The extraordinary people who work in nursing homes are doing some of the hardest, most physically and emotionally demanding work there is. They are lifting, bathing, and comforting people who can no longer do those things for themselves; work that, in another era, families did at home. They are drawn to this field, caring for someone else’s loved one as if they were their own, and that is, in the truest sense, a calling. Their contributions need to be part of this conversation.

While workforce demand is an issue throughout the aging services field, many of our nonprofit, mission-driven providers operate above required staff levels and hold onto their employees for years, sometimes decades, because they’ve built workplace cultures where people want to stay. Extraordinary successes are happening in this state, in facility after facility, and they deserve to be part of this conversation too.

Our caregivers grieve every resident whose health fails, and they celebrate every resident who is nursed back to strength and sent home. They do this work through the hardest days imaginable, including through a pandemic that asked more of healthcare workers than any of us had ever seen.

They kept showing up. They are still showing up.

Ask anyone who has spent real time inside a nursing home, and they will tell you: the care flows in both directions. Our caregivers’ lives are enriched by the people they serve, just as our residents’ lives are made more livable by the people who serve them. This, too, needs to be part of the conversation.

We know families are watching closely right now, and they should be. We welcome and encourage you to visit and to ask questions. Come see the people caring for your loved ones. Your presence and your voice make our nursing home communities better, and our best providers welcome this partnership.

We also need more people to join this field. Connecticut’s aging population needs a workforce equal to the task ahead, and that starts with telling the truth about what this work actually is: meaningful, dignified, and important. To anyone considering this path, whether nursing, caregiving, or the many roles that support them, we can tell you that the right people, the ones who come to this work wanting to do right by others, find it to be one of the most rewarding callings there is.

Connecticut’s nursing homes should be held accountable, and we intend to keep earning that accountability every day. So as this conversation continues, let’s make room to honor who is doing this work, and why. They deserve to be seen.

Access this article at its original source.