The long-awaited center will accept up to 12 seniors on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
By WILL VAN SANT
Published October 21, 2003
BROOKSVILLE - Following years of effort, the Hernando County Adult Respite Care Center is expected to open a week from today.
From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the center, across from Brooksville Regional Hospital, will serve as an elder day care, giving seniors a chance to socialize and their families a break from the stress of caring for an aged loved one.
Though it makes only a modest dent in the growing need for elder care in Hernando - the center can only serve up to 12 seniors at a time - officials who have labored on the project say the opening of the center is a first step toward securing additional funding and expanding service.
"It's been a long time coming," said County Commission Chairwoman Betty Whitehouse, who also heads Hernando's Elder Affairs Committee. "There are people in this county I have been talking about this with since 1990."
Whitehouse, who promised to expand senior day care options when she ran for the commission in 2000, has experienced the benefits of such programs firsthand.
Living in Iowa in the 1980s, where she taught gerontology and mental health nursing at the Mercy Hospital School of Nursing in Des Moines, Whitehouse was struggling to care for her elderly mother and her own children.
Then her mother was enrolled in a senior day care.
"She really developed friendships there," Whitehouse said. "It gave her a chance to go out and be stimulated."
In turn, it gave Whitehouse a needed break from caregiving. Research indicates that when family members get time away from elderly parents under their care, easily depleted stores of patience and stamina are restored, Whitehouse said.
The center is being run by Mid-Florida Community Services, a nonprofit agency that works in Hernando, Lake and Sumter counties. Mid-Florida is renting space for the center for $1 a year from Hernando Healthcare, which manages Brooksville Regional Hospital.
Aside from the modest lease payment, Hernando Healthcare also pitched in by spending $45,000 to remodel the space the center will use.
Seniors at the center will be supervised by a team of volunteers, trained by Whitehouse, and staffers from Mid-Florida Community Services. Participants will be charged $10 a day, Whitehouse said, but those in particularly pressing financial situations could pay as little as $1.
Hernando County, with its relatively large and growing elderly population, has just one other senior day care that can offer similar prices, Whitehouse said. It is run by Catholic Charities and operates one day a week, she said.
The day care will offer singing, crafts, storytelling, games and pet therapy, which relies on the soothing bond people can have with domestic dogs and cats to instill feelings of worth and well being.
Seniors with Alzheimer's, those who have had strokes or those who are suffering from depression from the death of a loved one are considered likely candidates for the day care, Whitehouse said.
George Popovich, senior services director for Mid-Florida Community Services, said he has recently reviewed some 40 applications for the day care. They were received as the result of word of mouth about the center's opening, he said, not from advertising.
While the day care can serve 12 people a day, the plan is to provide care for as many seniors as possible; some taken into the program will go once a week instead of twice.
Also to stretch resources, some flexibility is to be built in.
When a participant is unable to attend on a given day, a name will be pulled from a waiting list.
"It's something that is really needed in the community," Popovich said. "The plight of the caregiver is extreme."
Startup money for senior day care programs is hard to find, Popovich said, which is one of the reasons the program has taken so long to get up and running. Thanks to Hernando Healthcare, $25,000 from the county and donations, the day care has enough money to operate for a year, he said.
Once it becomes a viable enterprise, with undoubtedly a long waiting list, Popovich said he would attempt to get federal and state grant money in order to serve more people.
"We are going to try to keep this going for as long as possible," he said.
For information about the day care and other senior services, people may call the Elder Helpline at 796-0485.
- Will Van Sant can be reached at 754-6127. Send e-mail to vansant@sptimes.com
