Mously Diakhate has been providing immediate care to patients in one of the hardest-hit regions in the Bay Area during the pandemic.
Despite the fact that community clinics like the one she works at, LifeLong Medical Care Brookside San Pablo Health Centre, in the small East Bay city of San Pablo—which has the highest COVID-19 rate in Contra Costa County—generally offer significantly lower salaries than private practices, Diakhate has been a consistent presence for her patients.
Diakhate remarked, “We went into medicine to help people.” “A pandemic is a frightening situation, but we must act decisively.”
Diakhate has experienced regular viral exposure over the past two years, but she has also had to deal with the looming burden of another significant stressor: her $74,000 school loan debt.
Although interest and payment on federal loans have been suspended by the U.S. Department of Education since March 2020, the suspension is scheduled to expire in May.
Diakhate, a 33-year-old Senegalese immigrant who was the first in her family to attend college, stated, “That’s my dilemma right now.” “It’s like, should I pay back this student loan or put that money towards improving my family’s financial stability?”
However, Diakhate, a naturalised citizen of the United States who spent the majority of her childhood years in Oakland, said she has found some optimism in a recently announced U.S. Senate plan that would cancel or totally refund student loan debt for frontline healthcare workers.
Senate Bill 3828, sponsored by Democratic Senators Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Alex Padilla of California, will help healthcare professionals who have treated COVID-19 patients during the pandemic. In addition to doctors, nurses, medical interns, home health care providers, and emergency medical technicians who transport patients to hospitals, it would also include physician assistants like Diakhate.
The estimated 1.7 million health care workers in California would probably be significantly impacted by the proposed legislation. It happens at a time when the state is finding it difficult to hire more health professionals to handle the demands of a population that is becoming more diverse and when industry staffing shortages have been made worse by pandemic fatigue.
A statement introducing his Student Loan Forgiveness for Frontline Health professionals Act said, “Our brave frontline health care workers have fought tirelessly throughout the pandemic to ensure that our communities stay safe, often putting their own health at risk.” “It is simply unacceptable that far too many of these workers are burdened with crippling student loan debt.”
According to Padilla’s office, there have been over 35,000 COVID cases among California’s healthcare workers, with over 400 deaths as a result.
Dr. Janet Coffman, a health policy instructor at UCSF’s Healthforce Centre, praised the bill’s intention to acknowledge the significant hardships and sacrifices made by healthcare professionals throughout the pandemic. However, she stated that the existing wording of who would be eligible for loan forgiveness sounds “vague,” given that the relief would probably be available to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people.
And even a small amount of such assistance would require a substantial amount of financing. For example, the Association of American Medical Colleges reports that the average student debt for physicians who graduated last year was $203,000. According to the American Dental Education Association, it was much higher for recent dental graduates, coming in at around $302,000.
According to Coffman, “it makes sense to target it more at the front-line healthcare providers in the hardest-hit communities, as they have the highest exposure to COVID itself and the highest stress associated with providing care for people.”
Many health care experts believe that one of the biggest obstacles keeping health professionals from working in marginalised communities—where the salary is typically significantly lower—is student loan debt.
Certain federal programmes that are already in place offer to forgive or repay a portion of school debt to health professionals who agree to work in underserved populations, such as impoverished urban neighbourhoods or rural areas. However, Diakhate said she has been reluctant to apply for those awards since they are quite competitive, in part because many of her colleagues have been turned down.
Diakhate also lacks eligibility for other forms of aid because she is not a doctor or a dentist. One such programme is the state-funded CalHealthCares programme, which repays student loans up to $300,000 in exchange for a five-year commitment to working with Medi-Cal patients.
If the Padilla bill is passed, Diakhate said it will be simpler for her to continue dealing with LifeLong’s patients, who are primarily from lower-income families.
“It will relieve me of a burden, and I can utilise any additional funds I earn to further secure my family’s financial future,” stated Diakhate, who took on a second job as a COVID-19 tester to supplement her income and assist her ailing parents.
However, there is still much work to be done before the loan forgiveness plan can be implemented. A related House bill that was presented in the spring of last year has not progressed because Congress is still delaying approving billions of dollars in cash for pandemic relief.
Both Padilla and Whitehouse declared that in order to get their bill past the 60-vote barrier, they will press House leadership for further support.
Meanwhile, Dr. Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola, director of the UC Davis Centre for Reducing Health Disparities, stated that increased assistance for healthcare providers is desperately needed as yet another COVID variation spreads across the nation.
He stated, “There has been a rise in anxiety, mood disorders, and even substance abuse among health care workers, as well as an increase in suicides.” “They have been putting in a lot of work in really challenging conditions.”
