Community Groups Join With 1199SEIU to Save Buffalo Nursing Homes
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| Nancy Conner, an LPN at Waterfront |
Waterfront Health Care Center also filed a plan of closure with the Department of Health last November. With a little over 1,200 nursing home beds left in New York’s second largest city, 1199SEIU and the community are demanding that the sick and elderly of Buffalo have access to quality long-term care.
On December 11, over 200 1199SEIU members and community activists filled into the gymnasium for a Community Town Hall Meeting. The Town Hall targeted the western NY legislative delegation, asking them to step in to do something to save Waterfront Health Center. 1199SEIU member Nancy Conner, an LPN at Waterfront, testified about how closing Waterfront would impact the patients and workers.
“The closing of Waterfront as well as Saint Francis means patients will have to be placed in facilities outside of their community,” Conner said. “In some cases residents will have to move far outside their community to where they will not be able to see family members as often. No big deal, right? Well it is a big deal. Patients who do not get to see family often suffer more with depression and anxiety, they give up and lose their motivation to get better or even maintain a level of health.”
After listening to community concern, Assemblymembers Crystal Peoples-Stokes, Sam Hoyt, and Francine Delmonte, together with state Senators Antoine Thompson and Bill Stakowski all vowed to work with 1199 to try to keep Waterfront open.
On December 17, 1199 workers at St. Francis held an informational picket to inform the community on what is happening in Buffalo. St. Francis was projected to lose $1.6 million dollars this year.
Family members are concerned that residents have limited options already. “Family members like myself understand that St. Francis could not stay open and continue to lose such a substantial amount of money annually,” said Leslie Allison, whose mother is a former resident of St. Francis. “But we had few options for placing our loved ones in a Buffalo nursing home. There are too few beds left.”
“This is a crisis. If we don’t address this problem, the sick and elderly of our city will not have access to long term care,” said Todd Hobler, 1199SEIU Vice-President. “The closing of St. Francis will not be the last nursing home to shut down in this city if something is not done soon to fix the problem of inadequate Medicaid reimbursement rates.”
Low Medicaid reimbursement rates have left most upstate nursing homes in financial ruin. Medicaid pays for the care for the vast majority of residents in city nursing homes. Already low Medicaid reimbursement rates have been cut significantly by New York State over the last several years. The result is that the cost of caring for a Medicaid resident in a skilled nursing facility in Buffalo is now greater than the reimbursement.