Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 27, 1993 TAG: 9303290405
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Some of them are your neighbors.
This area's nutrition-for-seniors program - operated throughout the 5th Planning District by the Roanoke-based League of Older Americans - has been more fortunate than many in finding funds to help the elderly. Currently, its waiting list is down to 55 (from triple that just over a year ago).
But the waiting list doesn't tell the whole story. Many who need the service are discouraged from going on the waiting list unless they are in virtually emergency straits. And the number of meals actually served has declined steadily (from nearly 100,000 in 1989 to 86,000 last year), despite clear evidence that there are more, not less, elderly who would benefit from the program.
Increased demand is not merely demographic. (The elderly are the fastest-growing segment of the population.) There are other factors.
Changes, for instance, in Medicare and Medicaid regulations have meant that hospitals often release elderly patients before they are well enough to function on their own. More elderly can't afford to pay for home health care out of their own pockets, yet many are not eligible for government assistance.
If the senior citizen is lucky enough to have family members, those relatives may live in other cities, other states. And with more women in the work force nowadays, usually not by choice but by necessity, that traditional giver of care for the elderly - the adult daughter - is less available.
As a result, more disabled senior citizens, struggling to maintain themselves outside of institutional care, need the kindness of strangers.
But the strangers - in this case, the League of Older Americans and some 1,000 Meals-on-Wheels volunteers who deliver food in this region - can't do it without funds to maintain the program.
Nationwide, the money - including federal and state appropriations and private contributions from individuals, companies and organizations such as United Way - have not kept up with the demand. In many sections of the country, the situation is critical. In Detroit, for example, some 1,500 seniors are waiting to get into the Meals-on-Wheels program that can deliver only 1,350 meals a day.
These programs are too important to be buffeted about by choppy, unstable funding - as they have been for several years. Here's the way it usually goes: If the federal government increases appropriations, state governments reduce theirs - or vice versa. If the programs try to raise funds on their own, United Way organizations may cut their contributions.
Please consider: This area's Meals-on-Wheels program is able to provide a daily hot meal to homebound seniors at a cost of about $1,000 per senior per year. Without that hot meal, the elderly client may become malnourished and wind up in a hospital or nursing home where the costs - to be paid by taxpayers through Medicaid or Medicare - will be many, many thousands of dollars more.
Meals-on-wheels programs, in other words, not only are a vital lifeline for some vulnerable citizens. They're also a means of reducing institutionalization and controlling health-care costs.
by CNB