Cuts to budget take toll on state's adult day-health services

Some shuffled along using walkers. Others had to be pushed in wheelchairs. A few wore helmets — protective gear for the brain injured.

They are all clients of ElderHealth Northwest, the state's biggest provider of adult day-health services, which has been forced to slash services because of state budget cuts.

The agency will close two of its six facilities — one in Marysville, the other in Seattle — on July 1, laying off nearly 40 and leaving scores of vulnerable seniors and people with disabilities without services.

"It'll be just miserable for me" said Errol Anseth who started coming to ElderHealth Northwest a few years ago after suffering serious neurological damage from a mugging.

Another six adult day-health centers across the state are slated to close in the coming months, according to Sara Myers, executive director of Washington Adult Day Services Association.

The cutbacks will mean roughly 2,000 vulnerable elderly or disabled people will go without certain regular health services, she noted. Diabetics come for insulin management. People with heart trouble get their blood pressure monitored.

Others get occupational therapy to help them graduate from a walker to a cane or to relearn daily skills, like how to write after a head injury. Myers said services like these help keep people out of nursing homes and emergency rooms, which are more costly.

Anseth said the program helped him set aside his wheelchair. "It's measurable progress," he said.

Emery Friese, another client who started coming a year ago weak from diabetes and other ailments, says having someone to help him walk every day has made him stronger.

While both men can point to physical improvements, they say one of the most important things about the program is that it gives them a goal. Something to do. A social circle.

"It's a crucial thing for my happiness," Friese, who lives in an adult-family home in Shoreline, said.

Without the program, "all I do is sleep," Anseth added. Here, "I get to carry on conversations. Not be by myself."

Doug Harkness, a spokesman for ElderHealth Northwest, says in some ways, the program is providing "stealth health care." Clients come because they like the company, and once there, they get their health attended to.

While some clients pay for the service themselves, many others rely on Medicaid funding. All told, the programs, including transportation, served about 4,000 people at a cost of about $51 million per biennium, about half of which comes from the federal government.

Because of the state's financial troubles, the budget has been cut back to $14 million. People on Medicaid who live in adult-family homes or boarding homes are no longer eligible. People who live in private homes are still eligible, but they must find their own transportation.

"It's terrible," said Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Des Moines. "We had to triage our budget choices."

Myers said the cutbacks will only cost more in the long run.

"If even 10 percent of these people end up in nursing homes, it's a substantial amount of money," she said,

Maureen O'Hagan: 206-464-2562 or mohagan@seattletimes.com