Regional Digest
Regional Digest
• Ernie Petit of Woonsocket, RI, worries he will lose his home health benefits due to recent cuts in the federal Medicare program, reported the Associated Press. The new system for covering Medicare patients has reduced reimbursements in Rhode Island by $56 million in the past year, forcing three home health agencies out of business. At a rally last week held at the Woonsocket Senior Citizens Center, lawmakers promised to lobby to restore some of the Medicare money. U.S. Rep. Bob Weygand (D-RI) has submitted bipartisan legislation to provide $1 billion over four years to help provide home healthcare for some of the frailest patients. Also, bills to boost hourly pay for home health aides by a few dollars are sitting at the Statehouse.
• About 90 community health workers in southern Alberta, Canada, walked off the job last week in a wage dispute. Lori Kilbank, a spokeswoman for the Headwaters Regional Health Authority, said patients had been notified they wouldn’t receive services, and that private workers were being recruited to care for the most needy patients, reported The Calgary Sun. Home health workers are asking for the return of a 5% rollback of wages and benefits. No negotiations are planned.
• A Supreme Court case concerning whether states can be required to provide home-based care for disabled people has caught the attention of people in Wisconsin, reported the Associated Press. A Madison, WI, group, called ADAPT, has filed a complaint with the Department of Health and Social Services, accusing Wisconsin of not guaranteeing home health services for disabled people. The Georgia case, currently before the Supreme Court, involves two disabled women who sued the state for a transfer from a hospital to a publicly-funded home care setting. A federal appellate court in Atlanta ruled the Americans With Disabilities Act requires the state to provide home healthcare to them. If the Supreme Court overturns the decision, "people with disabilities will lose a big chunk of their legal right to be integrated into their communities," said Steve Verriden, of ADAPT.
• An Angier, NC, nursing assistant convicted of murdering an elderly patient is under investigation in the death of another woman under her care, reported the News & Observer in Raleigh. Carlette Parker, 35, worked for a private home healthcare firm, and was convicted of killing an 86-year-old woman by drowning her in a bathtub. Now, police believe she was involved in the death of a 90-year-old woman, who died in 1996. Parker had cared for the woman for several months.
• Mother and son home health aides are accused of stealing more than $50,000 from an elderly patient, reported the Los Angeles Times. The 39-year-old woman and her 19-year-old son have been arraigned on second- and third-degree grand larceny charges. They were hired by an 87-year-old woman to help her while she recuperated from a broken hip injury in 1995. Prosecutors say the aides drained money from the woman’s bank accounts. The woman died in September 1997.
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