Quality home care for elderly pushed
My Life, My Choice touted as mentally healthy for seniors, cheaper than nursing homes.
SHERRY LONG slong@timesleader.com
Pearl Novak used her wagon to haul materials for her parents as they were constructing their home on Bear Creek Boulevard when she was 6 years old.
Pearl Novak, 75, who lives alone in the home she grew up in, says the elderly should be allowed to stay in their homes to get care.
FRED ADAMS/THE TIMES LEADER
Now at 75, she moves around a little bit slower these days than when she was younger, but still lives in the home her parents built by hand and doesn’t want to be forced out by the government.
She’s just one of a growing number of seniors in the grass-roots campaign of My Life, My Choice PA Seniors for Homecare across the state advocating for the creation of a state commission to oversee quality home care.
“It’s my life. I should have a choice. Not everybody has to go to a nursing home,” Novak said.
“I live alone and I know they say people who live alone are depressed,” she said. “I am happy the way I am. I don’t need anybody. This is my rock. I spent my whole life working on this place.”
The commission would oversee a work-force registry to help the elderly find quality trained home care personnel, said Hannah Sassaman, spokesperson for My Life, My Choice.
If a caregiver called in sick for work, the senior could call the commission to request another home care worker be sent out.
Home care workers, who spend a few hours a day with the patients, don’t provide medical care, but help seniors with everyday needs – such as preparing meals, getting the mail and taking out the trash.
Commission supporters said the program would not only help seniors stay in their home, but it would also benefit the government because it is cheaper for a senior to stay in their home receiving home care rather than moving into a nursing home.
It costs, on average, $47,769 to care for a person in a nursing home facility, but that same person could receive home care for $15,405 a year, according to data My Life, My Choice received from the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare Data and the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid. In many cases, costs for long-term home care expenses would be covered by Medicaid or private insurance, Sassaman said.
“Even though 92 percent of Pennsylvanians want to stay in their homes to receive care, more than 80 percent of Pennsylvania’s senior care dollars are spent in nursing homes,” Sassaman said.
Pittston native Marie Manganiello gets angry when she learns that the elderly are forced into nursing homes when they would rather continue to live in their homes.
When a person is forced out of their home, it can have an adverse impact on their mental status.
“Just because you need nursing care doesn’t mean you’re senile and can’t make decisions,” Manganiello said. “When you remove choices from seniors, their quality of life is reduced. It takes away their ability to control their life and the manner in which the decisions are made relative to their life.”
Democrat U.S. Rep. Chris Carney, of Dimock Township, introduced the Caregiver Tax Relief Act of 2008 earlier this month.
If passed, the bill would allow caregivers who take care of people with long-term care needs to receive a $2,500 tax credit.
“It is designed for families taking care of loved ones. Congressman Carney believes the way we take care of our seniors says a lot about us as a community,” said Carney’s Communications Director Rebecca Gale.
Town hall meetings held across the state earlier this year will help the Department of Aging develop a “state plan on aging,” which it is required to do every four years by state and federal law.
The plan is expected to be unveiled by the department’s Web site at the end of August.
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