Kade Nursing Home's population of medical assistance residents hovers around 80 percent. A $10-per-day cut in our MA payment rate would cost the facility over $160,000 a year. With the cost of food, utilities, medical supplies, new technological advances and staff salaries always increasing, how can we afford the cut?
Pennsylvania has a high portion of elderly residents, and that number is expected to grow. The state nursing home industry is a major provider of both care to those in need and to the economy with the staff we employ and the supplies we need to purchase.
The nursing home industry is not asking for anything extra from the budget, just that our resources not be cut any further.
Douglas R. Hoffman
The writer is administrator of Kade Nursing Home in Washington.
Drivers should respect
funeral processions
I am appalled by the ignorance that people in Washington have for a funeral procession.
We were in a funeral procession on June 4, 2009. We were coming down Jefferson Avenue with our headlights on, flashers flashing and funeral flags on the vehicles. Needless to say someone in a silver mini van by Wash High cut in on the funeral procession. Well, there was a red light at the intersection of Jefferson Avenue and Chestnut Street, they stopped for the red light and the funeral procession was cut off.
I hope whoever that was, they will have more respect for the next funeral procession.
Mary Beth Conkey
Avella
Pavilion not a shelter
For the last week I have notice a homeless person "living" at the Dewey Avenue playground pavilion. There is a sign there stating the area is closed at I believe 8 p.m. This person should be moved by the police to a more approperiate site like the City Mission. This is an area for children to play and should be kept safe. This person may present a danger to children. Even if this person is not a danger, leaving him there after hours sets a precedent which will allow other, more dangerous people to hang out there after hours.
George Dawes
Washington
Losing our resources
Thomas Jefferson once said, "Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor."
How true is this statement when it comes to the people of Western Greene County. For years we have struggled with being one of the poorest areas of Greene County, but in reality we are one of the richest when it comes to our natural resources.
Every day, tons and tons of our natural resources leave the ground by a process called longwall mining, but with this process we lose some of our most valuable resources - water being the most.
We can no longer sit by and continue to see our natural resource being depleted and get nothing in return. Rebuilding of Duke Lake at Ryerson State Park would be a good start, but with neither the state nor the coal company willing to stand behind our community, we could see this resource gone forever.
Kimberly Jones
Wind Ridge