Tag Archives for Department of Elderly Affairs

Advocates on aging issues review their priorities for Gov. McKee’s policy agenda

Published in RINewsToday on Nov. 14, 2022

Over 3 months ago, the Senior Agenda Coalition of Rhode Island (SACRI) invited the six Gubernatorial candidates to give the details of their aging policy positions to hundreds gathering at East Providence High School, and watching virtually. With the dust settling after the Nov. 8 midterm elections, aging advocates are asking the winner, Gov. Dan McKee, to place a high priority on enacting aging policies that he supported during SACRI’s 143-minute forum.

McKee goes on the record

McKee addressed the issue that Rhode Island nursing home and home care providers can’t provide sufficient and sustainable wages to attract and retain workers because of low state reimbursement. When questioned about how he would rebuild and sustain a viable workforce to provide services to seniors and persons with disabilities, the Governor stated he has addressed staffing issues at home health agencies and nursing homes by expanding the Wavemaker Fellowships to include healthcare workers and increasing reimbursement rates for home health agencies by $900,000 annually.

More seniors prefer to age in place at home in their community rather then enter nursing homes. McKee gave his thoughts about Medicaid rebalancing and expanding the program to keep seniors at home. He touted the $10 million invested this year to rebalance the long-term care continuum, announcing his plans to soon issue an Executive Order to direct state agencies to review existing policies through

At the forum, McKee stated he will also direct all state agencies to appoint a representative to a task force, also including municipalities and community-based nonprofits, that will create a Statewide Aging Plan to determine where federal monies and grants can be utilized to support older Rhode Islanders.

During the mid-1990s the Department of Elderly Affairs (DEA) had a staff of 65. Demoted to the Office of Healthy Aging within the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, Gov. McKee went on record that he will support legislation next year to make the state’s Office of Healthy Aging a full cabinet department. He pledged to provide an adequate budget and staffing to oversee its programs and services to Rhode Island’s growing senior population.   

Gov. McKee also supported a yearly cost-of-living increase to the state Supplemental Security Income payment in the 2024 proposed budget. He also supported the increasing of eligibility for the Medicaid Savings Programs for seniors and people with disabilities in the proposed 2024 budget by eliminating the asset test and increasing eligibility to at least 185% Federal Policy Level. 

With the state passing $250 million in funding for housing, Gov. McKee agreed to provide an adequate amount to support senior housing.  He stated: “we’re off and running”, noting that he recently announced an investment of $80 million to construct 825 units in 17 communities.  The Governor noted that his 2030 plan speaks specifically on the issue of senior housing.

Make aging policy a priority

“With the growing needs of seniors throughout the country and within our state it is time to return to a function of government which “had teeth” to enact change for elders who were at risk,” says Bob Robillard, LMHC, President of Rhode Island Senior Center Directors Association, representing 34 Senior Centers, noting that his aging group is pushing for the passage of bipartisan legislation next session that will elevate the Office of Healthy Aging to a full department – cabinet – status. 

According to Robillard, having a seat at the table as a cabinet position, the Director would directly advocate with the Governor’s Office to address unmet needs and seek creative solutions for our seniors. 

Robillard also urged the Governor to continue efforts to develop secure and affordable housing that meets the need for increased  homelessness of Rhode Island seniors. ”Their income level and having to make difficult choices to survive each month is seen in our interactions with seniors every day, and they are increasingly utilizing food banks, emergency services, and our centers, and funding these basic services needs to be a top priority,” he says.

While some federal funds have been used to address this issue, Robillard says there is a “global need for a full and comprehensive Aging Plan for Rhode Island including the voices of direct service providers like the Senior Centers, senior advocates, caregivers and, of course, seniors, themselves.” 

Finally, Robillard believes that there should be a strong focus on transportation for seniors to access their community. “Safe, respectful and person-centered transportation in our rural areas throughout our state needs to be a focus,” he says, noting that if you cannot access your community in these ways then you cannot participate in them either.

With Rhode Island experiencing a critical shortage of homecare workers, Maureen Maigret, chair of the Long-Term Care Coordinating Council’s Aging in Community Subcommittee, calls on Gov. McKee to provide funding in the FY2024 budget to increase wages for CNAs working in home care. “The current budget includes $10 million to rebalance long term care. These funds should be used for wage increases for homecare direct care staff as an initial step to bring these invaluable workers fair wages,” says Maigret.

“It is also important to provide more resources to the Office of Healthy Aging and support for local senior services. Governor McKee started to increase funds for local aging services in the current budget and the Office of Healthy Aging has requested funding to provide each community ten dollars per person aged sixty-five and over next year,” adds Maigret, urging the Governor to include this in the budget he presents to the legislature for FY2024 as well as other funding requested by the Office including $.5million to support the state’s Aging and Disability Resource Center known as THE POINT. 

Gerontologist Deb Burton calls for the Governor to move forward to pass an Olmstead Plan to create opportunities for individuals to live in the least restrictive environments. “The Olmstead Plan would fit hand in glove with providing resources for individuals to age in the community, and not in institutions,” says Burton, who serves as Executive Director of RI Elder Info.  

Finally, Vincent Marzullo, well-known aging advocate who served as a federal civil rights and national service administrator, suggests that McKee direct the RI Commission for National/Community Service to identify AmeriCorps (national service) opportunities that would help build capacity and service delivery for our local senior centers and human services offices.  “Their needs have grown considerably during COVID,” says the West Warwick resident.

Editor’s Note: During the COVID weekly press conference time, Gov. Raimondo noted that changes need to be made in how people live in Rhode Island’s nursing homes, both from a communicable disease point of view, and from a humanity point of view. She announced a fund of $5 million to be put aside to support nursing homes transitioning their physical “plants” to be single room – single bathroom accommodations. Since Raimondo left office, there has been acknowledgement that this fund was set aside, but no action taken to address the mandate moving forward.

Tale of Two Caregivers

Published October 5, 2012, Pawtucket Times

           Being a caregiver to an older parent while raising children has now become the new rite of passage for aging baby boomers who, by the millions, are moving into their middle age years and beyond. Often called the sandwich generation for having care responsibilities at both ends of the age spectrum, these individuals become emotionally challenged, physically drained in their attempts to cope and juggle a multitude of tasks.

             According to National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP, more than 65 million persons, 29% of the nation’s population, provide care for a chronically ill, disabled, older family member or relative during any given year. The caregiver spends an average of 20 hours per week providing care for their loved ones.

 Taking on New Care giving Responsibilities

           Over seven years ago, Catherine Taylor, 51, the State’s Director of the Department of Elderly Affairs, and her husband, Rob, a practicing attorney, found themselves thrust into this new very demanding role with huge responsibilities. Like many others, the couple took on the demanding role of being caregivers of an elderly parent while juggling the intense domestic demands of taking care of four children, whose ages ranged from 3 years old to age 15.

           The Providence couple was now sharing the care of a very independent 83-year-old widow, who at that time resided in her home in Connecticut, one that she had designed. The older woman still continued to practice as an architect until her health began to rapidly steep decline.    

          In 1995, “We moved her back to Rhode Island six months before she died when she became too infirm to live independently in her home,” remembered Catherine.  

        Catherine wanted her mother-in-law to move in with her family, “but she was just too independent for that,” she said.  Her husband’s mother would ultimately choose to live out her final days in an apartment at a senior living facility on Providence’s Eastside, near the Taylor’s home. 

         As is the case with many caregivers who relocated their loved ones to live close by, packing, scheduling the move, and getting the Connecticut house ready for sale became the first chore of being a caregiver, notes Catherine.   

         According to Catherine, becoming a caregiver while working and raising a large family was incredibly hectic. “Many times we had to be in two or three places at one time,” each day.  Catherine adjusted her work schedule to help her mother-in-law with activities of daily living such as dressing, assisting in going to the bathroom, and feeding, take her to the emergency room or stay with her in the hospital, while wanting to be at home cooking her family dinner, and helping her children do their homework.

 Tips on Coping for Caregivers

            The couple juggled their roles as parents, caregivers and employees as best they could.  For instance, “our oldest child would be charged with watching his younger siblings”, Catherine says.  When visiting her mother-in-law to cook and assist her with eating, Catherine brought the youngest along to the senior living facility, and placed him in a portable playpen next to the kitchen table. Catherine, her husband and his sister, would divvy up cooking chores, each one take responsibility for making either breakfast, lunch or dinner.

           Supplemental care, provided by a home health aide, was especially needed when the aging baby boomer couple had to be at work.   

          While taxing for the entire family, care giving did have a positive impact on Catherine’s children.  “It really impressed on them how our family pulled together,” she said, noting “that it made them feel useful because they had specific jobs to perform to keep the family running.”    

           When asked if she got enough respite care for herself, Catherine quipped, “I never get enough!”  She added, “For us being part of a large nuclear family, also having a large extended family, we were able to trade off with each other.  But a lot of people don’t have that option,” she notes.  One of the hardest things about being a primary caregiver is how alone you can feel, Catherine said. “You’re living a different life from most other people.  You watch other families make snap decisions to go to the movies, and just hop in their car and go.  For you to do the same thing, the logistics tend to be like the invasion of Normandy.  You just have to go through so much organizing to have simple pleasures that other people don’t think twice about”.

          “Most family caregivers look like they are doing fine and think they are doing fine, but family, friends and neighbors, and sometimes community agencies, need to check in and give them a break so they care recharge their batteries.”

          Catherine suggests that caregivers maintain their relationships with friends and colleagues as hard as that is to do so they will look in on you, stop by for coffee, bring you dinner and help recharge you.  “This will allow you to keep doing your care giving job with love.”

 Double Duty as a Caregiver

          Sixty-four-year-old, Kathy Heren, Rhode Island’s Long-Term Care Ombudsman, a licensed practical nurse and caregiver, and her husband, John, 63, a chef, slipped into the care giving in the mid-1990s, watching out for two elder family members at the same time, a 72-year- old mother and her 78-year-old uncle.

          Both frail relatives (one had dementia and the other a heart condition) lived independently in their homes located in East Providence and on the Eastside. “Being Irish, they were both very stubborn in accepting assistance,” the aging advocate remembered. While professionally helping others cope with care giving and long-term care issues, Rhode Island’s Ombudsman had to carve out time to personally perform chores for her two frail family members. Chores included shopping, paying bills, and cleaning their houses.   Scheduling and transportation to doctor appointments and med management took additional time away from her very demanding job and family duties.

            When dealing with her Mother’s finances became just too difficult, Kathy, along with her sister, filed for guardianship.  “If you realize that there are some things you just can’t control, then seek outside services or assistance,” she recommended.  

           “Depending on personality of the person you are taking care of you may have to just step away from being a caregiver, if it impacts on your health,” she says.  “It may become the right time to turn to a nursing home or home care services, to take care of your frail family member.”

           “Make sure you turn to respite care if needed because it is always available”, Kathy suggests.  “You need to know when to seek out this assistance and go on a trip to recharge your batteries. When taking care of your loved one, do not forget your own health, family, or nutrition,” she says. .

 Seeking Respite Care Programs

             Rhode Island will receive $250,000 under the federal Lifespan Respite Care Act to support families caring for aging or disabled individuals with special needs, increasing access to short-term, or respite care. This relief offers family members temporary breaks from the daily routine and stress of providing care to loved ones with special needs.

             You can get information about respite care programs and resources available to care givers by calling by calling the Rhode Island Department of Human Services, Division of Elderly Affairs at (401) 462-3000, or you can go to www.dea.ri.gov. TTY users can call (401) 462-0740.

             The Rhode Island State Ombudsman, at the Alliance for Better Long-Term Care, monitors the quality of the Rhode Island’s nursing homes, assisted living facilities, home health agencies and hospice services, and address issues of elder abuse, guardianship, neglect and financial exploitation.  For more information, call  (401)785-3340.

             Herb Weiss is a Pawtucket-based freelance writer covering aging, health care and medical issues.

 

100 and Still Counting

Published in Senator Digest on May 2006.

The State Department of Elderly Affairs (DEA) is honoring centenarians and their contributions to society in May in observation of Older Americans Month.

“When you stop and think about the thousands of years of living history that centenarians represent, we begin to realize that their experience and wisdom are gifts to be treasured,” Corinne Calise Russo, the DEA  Director told Senior Digest.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the 2000 population count found 1,048,319 persons residing in the Ocean State. The data also revealed that 75,718 of those residents were age 75 and over. But, for those reaching age 100 and over, the number literally falls in the hundreds, a demographic milestone few will reach.

For the past 29 years, the DEA has been charged with organizing the annual Governor’s Centenarians Brunch, an event to celebrate people who have lived to be age 100. Over the year, the DEA’s brunch for the state’s oldest old has become the centerpiece of the agency’s celebration of May as Older Americans Month, says Russo.

In the early years, the Governor’s Centenarians Brunch was held in the State Room at the Statehouse.  In later years, the brunch was moved to community-based locations because of the climbing number of centenarians who were able to attend.

Six times, one of the oldest-know Rhode Islanders, Sam Goldberg, 106, has attended the Governor’s Centenarians’ Brunch with his elder peers, all who either reached age 100 that year or who have lived over a century.  Last year DEA organizers had located and invited 250 Rhode Islanders age 100 and over.  Only 50 attended the brunch. They expected the attendance for this year’s even to be around 60.

Goldberg, a resident of Village of Waterman Lake, Greenville, was born in 1900 in Lodz, Poland. Like many people at that time, his father came to the United States first to work to support his family.  Later, in 1907, Goldberg, his mother, two brothers and two sisters would come over and live, reuniting with their father.

During 1916, Goldberg worked in Hartford, Conn., at a company making ball bearings, for automobiles.

With the outbreak of World War 1, a recruiter in Atlanta signed him up in the United States Calvary. Little did the recruiter know that Goldberg would be one of the few remaining World War I veterans alive in 2006.

Goldberg was not destined to see battle oversee. He would be stationed in San Antonio, Texas, assigned to “guard the boarders against the bad guys.”  During his 17 months in the Army, he would also patrol the 40-mile boarder in Hachita and Columbus, New Mexico. “It was like police work,” remembered Goldberg.

After the Army stint, Goldberg returned to civilian life, working at Willy’s Overland Cars in New York. In 1922, he relocated to work at the company’s Providence dealership.  He moved to the city’s Elmwood neighborhood.  Goldberg has lied in the Ocean State for 84 years, was married for 76 years and raised three children.  He worked all of his life in the car business and said he became a partner at Hurd, a Cranston-based auto dealership, retiring at age 70.

While many people remember the destruction brought about by the Hurricane of 1938, it brought in lots of business in Goldberg’s Chrysler car dealership located on Reservoir Avenue in Cranston. “It increased our business because insurance companies paid to fix cars damaged by the storm,” he said.

Goldberg also remembered the days when Providence was populated with a large number of jewelry companies with thousands of workers.

“You had industry here. You have nothing like that now,” he says.

Why are more people living past age 100?

According to the New England Centenarian Study at the Boston University Medical School, centenarians are the fastest growing segment of our population. The second fastest growing segment is people age 85 and over.

The study started in 1994 has generated data that sheds light on the nation’s oldest old.  The BU Medical School’s website noted that centenarians have many characteristics in common.  Few centenarians are obese, and men and nearly always lean. Those individuals were never heavy smokers, and they could handle stress better than most.

Meanwhile, the study found that women centenarians had a history of bearing children after the age of 35 and even 40.  Researchers say that it is probably not the act of bearing a child in one’s 40s that promotes long life, but doing so may be an indicator that the woman’s reproductive system is aging slowly and that the rest of her body is as well.

The study also found at least 50 percent of the centenarians have first-degree relatives and/or grandparents who also achieved very old age, and many have exceptionally old siblings.  The data indicates that many of the centenarians’ children between age 65 and 82 appear to be following in their parents’ footsteps with marked delays in cardiovascular disease, diabetes and overall mortality.

DEA Director Russo says,” Each year (at the Governor’s Centenarians’ Brunch) we ask centenarians that age-old question,” What is the secrete to your longevity?” Their answers are varied as the personalities involved, but they all contain basic themes.  Stay active and alert.  Stay connected to family, friends and the world around you.  And most of all be grateful for each day and the joy it brings.

Goldberg seems to fit many of the predictors for living over age 100 that have been identified by the New England Centenarian Study. He is lean and never was obese. He never smoked either. But when questioned about his longevity, he laughed and said,” I keep breathing. You take in air.” Maybe his longevity is tied to a good sense of humor, too.