Few answers coming about nursing homes’ futures

“When I heard about it, it really affected me,” said Hill, 53. Deborah, 72, lives at Englewood Health and Rehab, where she requires a feeding tube and around-the-clock assistance after a series of strokes.

Hill runs a light trucking company and spends his time traveling between Cincinnati for his job and Dayton to help his mother.

On Monday, he was one of about 100 people in attendance at the Shiloh Baptist Church for a town hall meeting hosted by the Amos Project Women’s Health Initiative hoping to find out what’s going to happen.

Hill didn’t get the answers he was looking for.

“They don’t even know what to do,” Hill said about the six-member panel there to provide insight into the impact of federal legislation. “I didn’t get any answers.”

CareCore at Mary Scott in Dayton and Garden Court Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Trotwood were also identified in the study.

Ohio Sen. Willis Blackshear, Jr., D-Dayton, state Rep. Desiree Tims, D-Dayton, Dayton Mayor Jeffrey Mims, City Commissioner and mayoral candidate Shenise Turner-Sloss, Dayton Public Schools associate business manager Stacey Benson Taylor and Mattie White, first vice president of the NAACP Dayton branch fielded questions about the federal budget’s impact on state programs, busing for Dayton Public Schools, the potential for a new hospital in west Dayton, and HB 257.

Known as the Ohio Medical Fairness Act, the bi-partisan bill would cap the amount of interest on medical payments at 3%, would protect patient credit ratings from medical-related delinquent payments, and prevent health care providers or creditors from seizing cash, homes or property.

The town hall panel voiced unanimous support for the bill, while warning that things aren’t going to change unless people get more active in their communities.

“We are the people who will live the results of these policies,” Blackshear said.

Being more politically active is fine as a long-term solution, said Hill, but doesn’t help people solve immediate problems.

“I just don’t know what to do,” he said.