Imperiled adult day care deserves look by local leaders
The adult day care for Alzheimer’s patients run through Jovenes
de Antano for the past decade is scheduled to stop services at
month’s end, but it shouldn’t stop local government and nonprofit
leaders from examining the cost and finding out how feasible it
might be to keep it operating with reduced hours.
The loss of a local program that helps families with Alzheimer’s
disease patients shows how the massive state budget cuts can truly
hit home.
Imperiled adult day care deserves look by local leaders
The adult day care for Alzheimer’s patients run through Jovenes de Antano for the past decade is scheduled to stop services at month’s end, but it shouldn’t stop local government and nonprofit leaders from examining the cost and finding out how feasible it might be to keep it operating with reduced hours.
The loss of a local program that helps families with Alzheimer’s disease patients shows how the massive state budget cuts can truly hit home.
Millions of Americans and thousands of local residents have seen what the disease steadily does to those with Alzheimer’s and their family members.
Patients struggle to maintain their faculties and lose touch with the people they once were, while others are faced with watching and helping loved ones along the way.
It’s not at all surprising that the state no longer will fund the service, considering California’s second annual eye-popping deficit awaits. Expendable programs, even clearly valuable ones such as this, face the highest risk during a financial meltdown.
The question remains, how valuable is this local program to the community and where does it stack up against other uses of funds? It clearly has tremendous value to the dozen people enrolled – who attend Monday, Wednesday and Friday – and their family members who get a much-needed break from the stress of watching over someone with the disease.
After all, that time away for the family members – some of whom in the community cannot afford the often expensive private offerings – just might be the difference between having the capability or not of keeping them at home.
If the program can be cut back from three days a week to twice or once weekly, would there be enough support to use the little discretionary funding available or shift around funds in some sense on the government end? Would a player in the nonprofit community have the interest and resources to take it on?
At the least, it’s worth an examination and it’s worth a serious conversation or two among local politicians.
