OCR Text |
Show County Program Aids III At Home FARMINGTON - What do you do when health costs keep skyrocketing and you want to give your mother the best care but can't afford to keep her in a hospital or a nursing home? THE NEXT best thing to care provided by those two facilities is available to many through Home Health Care, a program administered by the Davis County Health Department Depart-ment and presently involving about 50. The program places the ill person back in the home under care of professionals as well as family and friends, says Dolleen Jewett, director of nursing for the health department. "The service is to provide care for those in their homes who can't be completely cared for by family or friends, especially if they've just come out of the hospital." A NURSE comes to the home and works not only with the patient but with the family or neighbors, instructing instruct-ing them in areas where they can assist the afflicted person, per-son, such as in giving baths. The nurse may make several visits a week at first, changing chang-ing dressings, giving injections injec-tions or-monitoring blood pressure. But where possible the visits are minimized and reduced as the patient recovers andor others are able to care for his needs. Mrs. Jewett says. Most involved are 65-years-of-age and up and must be recommended for the program by their physician. Medicare usually pays fees for older patients while insurance in-surance often covers costs for younger people. Aid is also provided by United Way funds, she says. THE PROGRAM was started start-ed 12 years ago and has seen a ten percent caseload increase although visits haven't gone up substantially, she says, tb of the Val Verda Utah Stake High Council. A returned LDS missionary, he now works with scouts as a merit badge counselor in areas of outdoor activity such as environmental environmen-tal science, nature, geology, rock identification and collecting, land surveying, plants and animals, and soil studies. Mr. Montgomery is married to the former Dianne Driggs. They are the parents of seven children, two attending attend-ing BYU and the others in public schools. |