Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 3, 1994 TAG: 9403030168
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LAURA WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER Note: below
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Mary Hammer, two-time stroke victim, 80-year-old amputee, sat by her telephone Wednesday morning at Warm Hearth Village. With her one still-useful hand shaking, she reached into a brown leather pouch strung from her wheelchair.
Hammer wanted her heart medication.
Just in case.
She was about to speak to the president.
``Can you hear me?'' came a sudden voice over the speaker phone on her breakfast table. A hush fell over the tiny living room, crammed full of television cameras, reporters and social service workers.
Crackling voices began to respond.
``Kansas hears you.''
``California hears you.''
``Virginia hears you,'' said Hammer, leaning forward over the telephone.
A voice sliced into the nervous anticipation filling eight living rooms and offices across the country, as eight anxious Americans - who had been speaking moments before of the weather, of their families, of the excitement of being chosen to talk to President Clinton - realized that he was actually on the line.
``I want to thank you all for joining me today,'' he began. And then came the oft-repeated pitch for health-care reform, a pitch to save a proposal that is beginning to slip in the opinion polls.
Clinton's angle on Wednesday?
Long-term care for the elderly.
He was preaching to the converted.
The voices that followed the president's for half an hour told stories of personal sacrifice, struggle and the need for help for those caring for elderly or disabled family members at home. From Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Arkansas, California, New York, Kansas and Texas, the stories sounded a common note:
Give us respite.
Hammer's voice sang a much happier tune.
Never mind that a head-on collision with a drunken driver caused her to lose her left leg 20 years ago, or that a stroke two years ago stole the use of what remained of her left side.
Hammer, who refuses to stay in a nursing home, takes care of herself. Sort of.
She is able to stay in her government-subsidized apartment - alone - with the help of social workers, her granddaughter, church members and home-care aides.
``I've been in a wheelchair 20 years, but I've made out just fine,'' she told the president. ``They didn't want to let me get out of the nursing home. But I decided: I put myself in, I can get myself out.''
That made the president chuckle. He laughed even harder a few minutes later, when a beeping sound came over the line and Hammer asked him if her time was up.
``No, no, your time is not up,'' he assured her.
Hammer's determination to remain at least partially self-sufficient made her the Golden Girl of the presidential conference call. Her situation represents what works in the American health-care system, Clinton told her.
``We wanted you to be on this call today because the local Department of Social Services where you live has done a good job,'' he said. ``What we're trying to do is make sure all people ... have access to that kind of help.''
It's not only cheaper than nursing-home care - which costs about $3,000 per month - it's what people want, Clinton said. It's ``care provided in the place people want to be most - in their own homes.''
Hammer said, ``And I live like a queen. Hallelujah.''
Not all of Montgomery County's elderly fare so well, social worker Linda Eaton said. The department's $52,000 annual budget provides home-care services for 20 people.
``We have hundreds waiting,'' she said. ``What we need is funding.''
by CNB