BOSTON - Several hundred people gathered at the Statehouse yesterday to support Gov. Deval Patrick's plan to shift millions in funding from nursing homes to home care services, which advocates say will increase the independence and dignity of senior citizens.
"Some of us may need it, but very few of us want it," Al Norman, executive director of Mass Home Care, said of nursing home care.
According to Mass Home Care, a Burlington-based agency that advocates community care for senior citizens, nursing homes receive 66 percent of long-term care funds from MassHealth, a Medicaid program for eligible low- and medium-income residents.
"We're not talking about adding money to the budget. We're talking about shifting money away from nursing homes, which frequently are underutilized and have empty beds," said Rep. Barbara L'Italien, D-North Andover.
L'Italien said diverting money to community-based care makes sense financially because she and others believe home care could provide services to two people for what it costs to keep one patient in a nursing home.
"It's just a smarter, more efficient and more compassionate way of caring for elders," L'Italien said.
Patrick's budget proposal would allow a $45.8 million transfer from nursing home funds to home care services. According to Jean McGuire, deputy director of Health And Human Services, it is the largest long-term care investment that any governor has ever proposed.
The shift, Mass Home Care said, is expected to help 30,000 people statewide over the next five years.
"I'm proud to be part of an administration that said it wants home care first," McGuire said.
L'Italien said House members will probably vote for the governor's plan. She and Sen. Susan Tucker, D-Andover, were key proponents of the Equal Choice law, which allowed seniors to receive care in the "least restrictive setting" possible, when it passed two years ago. At that time, 140 of 160 legislators signed a letter of support for this legislation.
"I think it's an issue that really does resonate with my colleagues," she said.
Rockland resident Cynda Childs, who works for Old Colony Elder Services and Rockland's Council of Aging, is hopeful L'Italien is right. Childs cares for a 92-year-old woman who left a nursing home in favor of home care services. The woman's spirits, Childs said, have risen quickly since she first left the nursing home.
