Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

Memorial Day Trail of Dead Aging Veterans’ Felled By COVID-19 &VA Cuts

 

Stalag-VII-A Moosburg Bavaria

My father was held in a prison camp during World War II. He was an officer and his camp only housed the higher ranks. He never spoke about the war. He was a World War II navigator shot down in Poland and transferred to Stalag-VII-A Moosburg Bavaria.  He returned home a broken man with PTSD, never took a bus, drove or flew on a plane again. His disability, like so many vets was untreated for 50 years. He worked as an advertising agent ala Mad Men and drank like Don Draper. Our family crumbled into a dysfunctional maelstrom, as most families do. Literally saved by the Palo Alto VA GRECC Program in his late 60’s, he lived a very good life with my family for his last 25 years.

Patton Liberates The Prison Camp

My mother told me that near the end of the war, his prison camp was abandoned by the Germans. Most of the men had dysentery and were skeletons. Patton liberated the camp, according, to the story I heard and he cried when he saw his officers so very ill, burning up the bunks they slept in to keep warm in the freezing German winter. My father would say verboten when we asked questions, as he learned German while imprisoned. We were told by my mother never to talk about the war.

Holyoke Soldier’s Home Prison Camp

In today’s New York Times front page there is another story of another soldier who never talked of the war. But this World War II soldier, James Leach Miller, lived to be 98. He survived  D day the deadliest battle of the war but did not survive his own prison camp, the Holyoke Soldiers Home in Massachusetts. There was no Patton to roar up in tanks and save the 89 soldiers who died in the VA facilities that housed 210 frail older men. 74 were diagnosed with the virus. The state investigation shows there was limited staffing and workers that remained did double shifts. This was before the Pandemic hit. The Times reported that Holyoke had scarce PPE, was understaffed, and put veterans infected together with residents who did not yet have the virus.

Death By A Million VA CUTs

Erin O’Brien an associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, said Massachusetts folk are outraged. Veterans programs require funding. President Trump has been making radical cuts in VA care and caregiver funding.

 

Trump Administration Batters The VA

The Trump administration has left the VA as battered as the fleeing Germans left my father’s prison camp. These poor soldiers in their 90’s were left as the Times headline says “to Languish in a Home Ravaged by Illness “with few staff , PPE a raging epidemic and no President Trump coming in to cry at his army’s plight and save them when he saw men who had risked their lives for all of us- and lived on – only to felled by VA cuts.

California Cuts Pushing Frail Elders into the Cesspools of COViD-19

Here in California, the frailest, poorest and oldest in the state are being potentially knifed in the back by slashing budget cuts to the very services that keep them out of nursing homes.

 The Multipurpose Senior Services Program , one of the first geriatric care management programs in the nation, designed to keep fail elders out of nursing homes, is set to axed from the California State budget.

The Governor has also proposed elimination of $2.9 million of state funding and $3.9 million in federal matching funds for the 11 statewide Caregiver Resource Centers, 

providing critical respite care and counseling to caregivers of adults with chronic and disabling health conditions.images_20130906-154817_1.jpg

Both programs were designed 4 decades ago to keep elders at home and out of more expensive nursing homes and staunch family caregiver burnout. They offer huge safety nets, designed to keep frail seniors in the community.

MSSP is of a daycare program providing rich social and health services to frail elders and their families. The Care Resources Program caregiver respite and support to overwhelmed family caregivers.

These programs save the state a bundle of money. Each of the MSSP clients is disabled enough to be eligible for nursing homes and poor enough to be eligible for MediCal. So instead of the state paying $80,000 or $90,000 per person per year in a nursing home, the State pays only on average a little over $5,000 for the person to be in GunnDadJacket.jpgMSSP.This makes the cuts both fiscally stupid and mystifying.

What California government is doing is ripping giant holes in this web plummeting 45,000 seniors into the cesspool of COVID-19 skilled nursing facilities, where almost  half of California COVID-19 deaths occured.

 Without the services and supports available through MSSP, and the Caregiver Resource Center, many older Californians will have no other choice but to be admitted to nursing homes, where nearly half of all deaths related to COVID-19 have occurred. 

But the doors may be barred. Given the high risk of COVID-19 in nursing homes, owners are reluctant to take new patients. So, the elimination of the Caregiver Resources Center and  MSSP is really a death sentence to frail elders. It leaves no fire extinguisher for caregiver burnout of the family caregivers who care for elders with the toughest disease: brain impairment- Alzheimer’s, stroke, dementia, Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s other conditions that may cause memory loss or confusion.

This may cause a cascade effect- placement of these horribly demented elders, into the plague-infested nursing home or also to death’s doorKali--Bill-Connies-book-.JPG

Governor Newsome has been a national hero as the first governor to issue a stay at home order to close counties down in California. He slowed the spread of coronavirus and kept California in a safe zone compared to most other states. But this was at the cost of taxpayer dollars as 4.7 Californians were put out of work. 

 He finds himself in a double bind now with a chasm of a budget hole, that he is trying up to fill with cuts like the ones proposed to the senior program. But the cuts will lead seniors to nursing homes  costing $80,000 a year instead of the $5000 for MSSP  into those caldrons of coronavirus

California is always the canary in the coal mine- the innovator that most states follow. So, these cuts can be expected across the nationwide. Who is the real villain in these cuts, the Trump Presidency. 875 billion was approved in the House of representatives in the HEROES Act. Cutting both programs saves $119 million. But these cuts would be eliminated if Congress OKs this aid for state and local governments — a prospect many state lawmakers believe is unlikely as President Trump is threatening to veto the money to the states . This has spurred a cacophony of outrage from local legislators and senior advocates. angered state lawmakers from both 

major political parties who say it’s irresponsible in light of the coronavirus pandemic that has spread through nursing homes across the state. It’s one of many conflicts emerging this week as lawmakers hold public hearings examining Newsom’s proposal before they must vote on a spending plan by June 15.

Want to help save these programs

 

PUBLIC COMMENTS – WRITTEN: Submit written public comments by email to: sbud.committee@sen.ca.gov

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