People filled the room at Elant at Wappingers Falls on Feb. 26, hoping to meet with Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther, D-Forestburgh, and other Hudson Valley legislators working to come up with a solution to New York”™s health crisis.
Instead, the nurses, CNAs and residents who came to the Northern Metropolitan Town Hall forum met with elected officials”™ representatives, since the officials scheduled to appear were called back to Albany to work on the budget. Their representatives took names and notes to carry back to their respective offices.
Scott Amrhein, president of the Continuing Care Leadership Coalition based in New York City and Donna McAleer, president and CEO of Elant, the Hudson Valley region”™s largest eldercare health provider, led the discussion on the impact proposed cuts to Medicaid and Medicare will have on those who rely on long-term care facilities.
Michael Chaiken, executive director of St. Theresa”™s Nursing Rehabilitation Center in Middletown, sat among the audience.
“The reason this meeting is occurring is because we need your help,” Chaiken told the group.
Residents in long-term treatment facilities don”™t just include the elderly, pointed out McAleer. “They range in age from 9 to 90. They are here because they have no other resource and they can”™t be cared for at home.” Both McAleer and Amrhein blasted the proposed cuts to health care, saying they adversely affected the segment of the population “who can least afford to pay and need care the most.”
Why is New York”™s Medicaid/Medicare bill one of the highest in the US? asked Amrheim rhetorically. According to his organization, which represents more than 100 of the leading long-term nonprofit and public health care systems, New York offers a more extensive array of services and has the biggest HIV-positive population in the country.
“Rather than strengthening the system, Paterson”™s proposed cuts will devastate it,” said Amrhein.
Caring for chronically ill and elderly patients may not be a very attractive job, added McAleer, but those who do it “have a strong commitment, which is desperately needed. We need to staff our facilities 24/7 because we are on duty 24/7. And we need to pay health care workers a living wage.”
McAleer, whose Elant network reaches 3,000 people a day, said, “Long-term care margins are very thin due to a decade of cuts; this could be lethal. And who are the real losers? The people who need the services. Our programs are 99 percent full. This administration is determined to meet the budget”™s April 1 deadline. Please write and reach out to them.
“Now is not the time to turn our backs on the most vulnerable,” said Amrhein. “We want to send a strong message to the governor. There have been enough cuts. How many more does he think we can endure?”
Both McAleer and Amrhein questioned the rationale of solving the budget problem “by punishing people who have given so much to the community,” specifically referring to the elderly patients who are now residing in long-term care facilities and “have contributed to our overall quality of life for years before they ever thought they”™d need long-term care.”
They pointed to the new stimulus package coming from Washington, saying, “Use the money for its intended purpose.”
Hudson Valley resident Warren Harris, whose wife is currently a resident at Elant at Wappingers, wanted to know what is being done to help people go home. “We are caught between a rock and a hard place,” said Harris. “She”™d like to come home, but we don”™t have the support in place to make that happen.”
McAleer agreed, saying the best place to be is at home. “Our new managed long-term care plan predominantly helps people go home and still have access to staff to give them a continuity of care.”
Harris told McAleer he and his wife cannot afford long-term health care insurance.
Another member of the audience whose wife was an Elant resident praised the quality of care she was receiving: “I hope our representatives bring a little compassion into the mix when they are contemplating these cuts.”
Diane Frazier, a director of rehabilitation and a 25-year employee of Elant, said, “Most of us are in this profession because we want to help people reach the best level at which they can function.”
Deborah Hillard, an RN and director of long-term health care, said, “In my 19 years in this industry, this is the worst I have seen it. We need to retain home health care workers and retain them with competitive wages. Most of them are feeling the same pinch.”
Both health care leaders and the state”™s official representatives urged those in the audience of approximately 100 people to write, call or fax their legislators about the proposed cuts and to look for other solutions.
“Let your voices be heard,” said Amrhein.
