Don't cut elder day care health programs
Over the past 30 years, California has developed programs that allow older adults and persons with disabilities to successfully live in the community. The Adult Day Health Care Program was one of these. Kern Medical Center has run one of these programs for the last 16 years.
It is called Elderlife. This program offers a wide range of health, therapeutic and social programs to enable functionally impaired adults and the frail elderly to remain at home. The goal is to promote the restoration and maintenance of physical and mental health and to facilitate continued independent living in the community.
Elderlife provides this care five days a week. This enables their family members to maintain employment knowing their loved ones are safe.
To address California's budget shortfall, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed eliminating all adult day health care programs. However, this will not eliminate the need for assistance for the elderly and disabled. It will drive them to more expensive, and less desirable services, such as emergency rooms, nursing homes and mental hospitals.
Many of these programs are funded with the same MediCal dollars as Adult Day Health Care. Instead of a savings, it is a shifting of funds to more expensive ways to provide the care.
A year of care at an adult day health care center costs the state of California $19,310 ($74 a day), while nursing home care runs $48,000 at minimum. Many families will have to quit their jobs to care for their loved ones. So unemployment benefits will be increased.
We have all heard there are fewer county dollars to go for services in our community. But what are the alternatives if this program is closed? Do you want to see your tax dollars go to warehouse the elderly and disabled in already understaffed nursing homes? This will only increase our taxes.
In addition to economic costs, the Kern County Board of Supervisors must consider the quality of life impact that eliminating this valuable community-based program will have on these people and their families.
Our Kern County Board of Supervisors will be deciding on Feb. 16 whether ElderLife, our local adult day health care center, should be closed. This would be a premature act, since we do not know that the legislature will accept the proposed budget. The hearing should be continued until we know for sure what the action of the legislature will be.
If adult day health care is not eliminated as a MediCal benefit, Kern Medical Center should be directed to continue to operate this vital service to the most vulnerable in our community.
An aside: We have formed an Elderlife Foundation, which provides scholarships to those who need the service but do not meet the Medi-Cal requirements. It has been very rewarding for me personally to hear from the clients and their families how vital this program is in helping them cope with providing for loved ones and still being able to work.
Nedra Gilfillan is the chair of the Kern County Adult Day Health Care Advisory Board (Elderlife) and has been chair since the start of the program in 1995. The advisory board acts as a liaison to the Board of Supervisors.
