Home care nurses like me are essential. We deserve fair pay | Opinion

By Kimberly Bondi Scharaga

Nurses serve as the heart of our healthcare system.

You can honor us during National Nurses Week 2025 through May 12.

But honoring nurses requires more than flowers and thank-you cards. It requires funding, fairness, and real change, especially for home care nurses across New Jersey who are being left behind.

We are home care nurses, serving the state’s most medically fragile children and adults.

We administer medications, deliver therapies, manage feeding tubes, ventilators, and other specialty medical equipment, and deliver around-the-clock care, by ourselves, all from within the homes of our patients.

Our work keeps people out of institutions, improves quality of life, and offers peace of mind to families. Yet, we continue to be undervalued and underpaid, even as the state relies on us to deliver cost-effective, high-quality care.

Home care nursing remains one of the most underfunded sectors in our state’s healthcare system. Even as we perform skilled, life-sustaining tasks every day, we earn far less than our peers in hospitals and outpatient clinics. Some of us take on second jobs to make ends meet.

Others leave the field entirely, not because we want to, but because we simply can’t afford to stay. This inequity is fueled by stagnant Medicaid reimbursement rates and a lack of recognition for the life-saving work we do.

Those of us who can stay do because this work matters. We are there when a child with complex medical needs takes their first breath at home. We support aging adults through their final days with dignity. We celebrate milestones. We hold hands and provide critical care in moments of crisis. Our relationships with patients are not fleeting, we become part of their families.

We also save the state money. Studies consistently show that home-based care costs nearly half as much as institutional care. Home care is not just compassionate, it’s fiscally responsible. The simple fact is that New Jersey can reduce its healthcare costs by expanding access to home care and supporting the nurses who make it possible.

This Nurses Week, we’re not asking for applause, we’re asking for decisive legislative action. New Jersey must increase reimbursement rates for the Private Duty Nursing (PDN) program.

Without fair funding and fair wages, there are not enough skilled nurses to care for needed to care for the state’s most vulnerable residents in their homes. Families will face heartbreaking choices, and patients will be forced into hospitals or long-term care facilities, not because it’s best for them, but because there’s no nurse available to care for them at home.

If we are to truly honor Florence Nightingale’s legacy as the visionary who redefined modern nursing and believed in care as a cornerstone of dignity, we must commit to fair pay and full funding for home care nurses.

We are New Jersey’s invisible front line. This week, make us visible. Fund home care. Respect our work. Support our patients.

Kimberly Bondi Scharaga, who resides in Bridgeton, is a registered nurse.

Calling your elected representative in the state Assembly or Senate is the most effective way to influence policy. To find your state Assemblymember and Senator to voice your position, go to the New Jersey Legislature website’s Legislative Roster.

Local journalism needs your support. Subscribe at nj.com/supporter.