Sheila Lirio Marcelo is stepping down as the CEO of an organization that supplies caregivers to patients in need. What has happened here is an example of a business ethics nightmare. The publicly-traded organization, with revenues in the $50 million range, has been 
rapidly growing as the demand for caregivers has exploded especially with Baby Boomers who are electing to “age in place” rather than march off to independent care facilities. Obviously, there is still a significant population of octogenarians and nonagenarians who need more intensive levels of caregiving.
A Business Ethics Nightmare
Recently, I have written about investigations at elder and memory care facilities that were found guilty of absolutely horrid conditions and unimaginable patient abuse. It every “child’s” worst nightmare; to believe that while they thought they were doing the right thing in fact; the outcome was just the opposite. Part of the problem with our broken system is that there is a paucity of healthcare workers. While there appears to be more than enough money for pharmaceuticals and expensive procedures and equipment, pay for skilled and semi-skilled care providers is lacking at best. As a result, agencies have traditionally had far greater success finding foreign born help than U.S. help but when the number of qualified candidates from other countries began to fade, other (more cost-cutting) solutions had to be found. This is the trap that Marcelo’s organization would resort to in hiring candidates.
Upon investigation, it was revealed that Care.com failed to conduct background checks on newly hired and prospective caregivers. In fact, some of those caregivers had police records and sadly, some of the workers committed crimes against those they were caring for. What for an organization can be a worse business ethics nightmare. Once these revelations were revealed, Sheila Lirio Marcelo was asked to step down as CEO. The organization is currently seeking a new CEO and strangely, Marcelo is transitioning to an “executive chairwoman.”
In a statement from Marcelo, she will instead “focus her efforts on advocating for improvements and innovations in the country’s care infrastructure to better enable families to find quality care and caregivers to find meaningful work.” She also said she was “excited to be able to focus on broader policy and advocacy issues, while being available to advise and support our new leadership on the next phase of growth and innovation.”
Mixed Ethical Messages
As CEO, the executive who was just asked to step down to help search for a replacement knowingly hired caregivers with police records or minimally, failed to do background checks. It was a dartboard, random chance and luck to find well-qualified people. Her statements, most probably written by investor relations account executives, imply of someone with the lofty ambition of “advocacy,” “better searches for families in need,” and “supporting the new leadership.”
Ethically, it is mystifying. To begin, her well-crafted statement does not once mention ethics, oversite or even the corporation’s rationale for keeping her on staff. Any person (and I have indeed and unfortunately known some) who have had crimes from petty theft to outright neglect and abuse committed against elderly parents or friends most probably would wonder at why a person who admitted to bypassing the background check process would still be employed. It’s all a business ethics nightmare.
I would agree that the system is broken. Rates paid for presumably quality care by insurance or Medicare are woefully inadequate. In addition, companies who are hiring the healthcare workers, whether aides, CMA’s or higher, are taking huge chunks out of their caregiver paychecks. So even if a quality person is hired there are few incentives for them to continue in the profession. It is a profit mill for the Care.com companies of the healthcare world, but ethically, it is a shame we have all gotten to this point.
