St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie is the only hospital in the immediate area that offers home health services. It’s been doing so since the mid-1980s, said communications director Larry Hughes. Home health care is consistent with St. Francis’ mission. The total operation, including aides, has about 145 employees.
“It has worked very well,” said program administrator Barbara Good, a nurse herself. “Many people do better with community-based home care.”
Finally, Valley Vista on North Road in Highland is publicizing its adult day care services. It has announced an open house for its program on Oct. 25 from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
This survey is less than comprehensive. There are other substantial agencies providing home health care services in Kingston.
Aging in place
Like everywhere else in the country, the number of people working in home health care in New York State is expanding rapidly, while the number of people working in hospitals has grown much more slowly. State labor department statistics for August two decades ago showed 53,800 persons working in home health care and 325,400 in the state’s hospitals. Ten years ago, 68,100 persons were employed in home health care and 333,600 working for hospitals. In August of this year, the number of employees in home health care had grown to 128,400, compared to the 355,800 working for hospitals.
The trend is expected to continue. State statistics for the past five years show an average of about 7,000 additional workers per year recruited to home health care in the state, versus about 2,000 annually in hospitals. In New York City, hospital employment has been static for almost two decades, and home health care employment numbers have been increasing at a faster rate than in the rest of the state. Reliable statistics are not available for such small census-designated metropolitan areas as Ulster County.
Like other older Americans, older New Yorkers overwhelmingly prefer to remain in their homes as long as possible before being institutionalized and to depend on community services for their medical and non-medical needs. The phrase usually applied to the trend is “aging in place.”
“This is an opportunity to break with the traditional model of long-term care services that relies heavily on more costly institutional care,” argued an August 2011 report from the New York State Association of Area Agencies on Aging, “and to further rebalance the long-term care system toward home- and community-based services.”
The Ulster County Office for the Aging recently examined health and service records for 1536 of its clients for the year ending March 31, 2011. According to director Anne Cardinale, the average client was 81 years of age. Some 79 percent lived alone. Nineteen percent were 90 years old or older. Clients typically had at least one activity of daily living that they were unable to perform without help, and the average client needed help with such activities as cooking, housekeeping and transportation.
