Residents fear cuts in nursing home care

FRANCES HOOLEY, 79, speaks at an advocacy forum at Schervier Nursing Care Center on Feb. 6 to fight budget cuts to nursing homes. Photo by Karsten Moran

By N. Clark Judd

Sitting in a wheelchair, Olga Luntz, a former opera star and now a Schervier Nursing Care Center resident, ascended a dais in a meeting room at Schervier on Feb. 6 to make a personal plea to Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz.

"I'd never thought I'd run in a wheelchair, but I have," said Ms. Luntz, handing him a thick stack of papers, "and the service [at Schervier] has been wonderful but for God's sake, and for your sake, and for all of our sakes, please accept all these petitions."

Over 1,000 local residents like Ms. Luntz have petitioned the Legislature to come up with the cash to avoid personnel cuts at the homes where they and their loved ones reside.

Gov. David Paterson has proposed cutting over $420 million in state funding to nursing homes next year, with additional cuts to home care and medication subsidies for senior citizens.

Nursing homes are bracing for a tough two years.

At the Hebrew Home at Riverdale, Chief Executive Officer Daniel Reingold has already laid off 35 people. His opposite number at Schervier Nursing Care Center, Jim Higgins, figures he'll have to let go of 20 people for every million dollars he stands to lose. At the Methodist Church Home, Maria Perez says members of her staff are crunching numbers in a race against time to figure out what the damage will be before it happens.

"Labor represents 70 to 75 percent of the operating expenses of a nursing home," Mr. Reingold said, adding that payroll is one of a very few places where nursing homes can cut costs.

Nurses' aides have assumed the duties of the 35 people he has already laid off, and are now serving meals and transporting patients. Volunteers fill in where nurse's aides do not.

"There's only so many lights we can turn off," Mr. Higgins said.

Scott Amrhein, president of the Continuing Care Leadership Coalition, an industry group, says that nursing homes in the state stand to lose as much as $1.5 billion in the next two years. Mr. Paterson will change the way the state calculates its Medicaid reimbursement to nursing homes, defer making any recalculations for inflation, cut those reimbursements as part of budget reductions, and make cuts to associated programs on long-term care and home care.

Community Board 8 member Irving Ladimer, who went to Schervier from Montefiore Medical Center after he fell, urged that Riverdale and Kingsbridge-area senior citizens organize to protest the proposed budget cuts.

"Let me tell you a little bit about what might happen in the event that these cuts take place," said Mr. Ladimer, 93. "Chances are I would not be here if these cuts had been in effect at the time that I had my accident."

It's a doomsday scenario that may or may not come true. Mr. Amrhein says that if federal lawmakers institute a proposed increase in the amount of money the federal government puts up to match the money New York spends on Medicaid, no cuts will be necessary. Mr. Higgins figures, more conservatively, that federal intervention will alleviate 30 percent of the cuts.

But many seniors and experts say any reduction in funding would have dire consequences.

Mr. Ladimer, who holds a doctorate in juridical science, ticked off the areas slated to receive spending cuts: nursing homes - some of which have more than 70 percent of patients' care paid for by Medicaid, home care, long-term care, rehabilitation and pharmacy programs such as EPIC.

"In other words," he insisted, "this is not just a matter of dollars, this is a matter of particular points which all of you have had reference to at some point in your lives."

EPIC - Elderly Pharmaceutical Care Coverage - is a slate of state-sponsored programs to help senior citizens get medication. Included in Mr. Paterson's slate of budget cuts is the removal of a portion of EPIC that funds the drugs that a federal program, Medicare Part D, won't subsidize.

"I call it a bait-and-switch," Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz said Feb. 2.

He later added, "People were told that Medicare Part D is not so bad, because if there's a gap in it, EPIC will pick up the slack."

This is part of the February 12, 2009 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

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