Alameda County Seniors Plead For Adult Health Care Services
OAKLAND (KCBS) --- Adult care health services in California that assist the "medically-fragile," are expected to shutdown by July 1st if a funding bill isn't approved in Sacramento. Some seniors were in the Alameda County Board chamber in Oakland Monday, pleading for something to be done.
Sixty-three-year-old Sherry Jackson, who is hooked up to an oxygen tank, lives alone and goes to the Lifelong Adult Day Health Care Center in East Oakland. Jackson choked up talking about what the center meant to her.
KCBS' Dave Padilla Reports:
"It means I have somewhere to go because if I'm home alone I have no one to be with," she said. "People there are like family."
There are seven Adult Day Health Care centers in Alameda County. Supervisor Wilma Chan said a bill in Sacramento, AB 1415, would help continue the system of care before the programs are eliminated by July 1st.
"There is a bill pending," Chan said. "There is something to work with here. We're not just complaining."
She said that bill may be the last hope for an estimated 37,000 Californians who rely on these critical services. In Alameda County, women make up 70 percent of the Adult Day Health Care population and overall, the people in the Adult Day Services Network have an average of five chronic conditions.
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