On November 21, I spoke before the Annual Meeting of the Coalition for Seniors and Nursing Home Residents Rights. In my talk, I described the process and the costs involved when my husband entered a nursing home in 2002.
The purpose of my talk was to congratulate the Coalition for their tireless work in improving the process and costs by having the government eliminate assets in the assessment process and consider income only, and having nursing care portion of the fees covered under medicare and residents being charged room and board only.
Premier Graham announced early in 2007 that residents would be charged a flat rate of $70.00 per day and receive increased hours of care. In 2009 that rate was increased to $83.00 per day, an increase of 18.6 percent in two years. The second purpose of my talk was to remind seniors to be vigilant to assure we don't gradually slide back into the situation of 2002.
I hope this clarifies the information printed in Monday's edition of the Times & Transcript in an article titled "Metro woman says nursing home funding unfair".
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