Stec, Simpson playing politics on Elderwood
Why are they talking about immigrants and Medicaid when Elderwood is talking about the Vital Access Provider program?
"We are operating as normal. We are providing all the services and quality care that we need to provide to our residents," explained Heidi Schempp, administrator for Elderwood at North Creek, during the meeting. "But we are at risk for closing."
"What does that mean? That's scary," another woman asked.
If state Vital Access Provider funding which the nursing home administration has applied for does not come through, Schempp said, "We would start actively closing."
Post Star reporter Alex Portal lays out the dire situation at Elderwood nursing home in a front page story today. The facility administrator is concerned about funding through NY state’s Vital Access Provider funding. The state website says: “Funding is made available under Hospital VAPAP to hospitals and health systems with serious financial instability and requiring extraordinary financial assistance to enable these facilities to maintain operations and provision of vital services while they implement longer-term solutions to achieve sustainable health care service delivery.”
On April 13th the Post Star ran individual (poorly edited) letters from state Senator Dan Stec and Assemblyman Matt Simpson concerning the potential closing of Elderwood. Neither letter mentioned the VAPAP program which administrator Heidi Schempp is so concerned about despite Stec’s assertion that he’s been in close contact with the facility’s operators.
All of those topics are worthy of discussion, but they are not the immediate concern in North Creek. People are worried about their jobs, their community, and primarily family members who reside in Elderwood. Where will their family members go if Elderwood closes? This is extraordinarily important to our regional community, but Stec and Simpson seem more interested in playing politics over the state budget than in fixing the problem at hand.
People who give credit to Stec and Simpson for the work they are doing are lost in the smokescreen. Our representatives need to be working with state agencies to speed the application of Elderwood through state Department of Health scrutiny, not playing politics.
https://www.health.ny.gov/facilities/hospital/vapap/