I spent some time this morning at the Springwell Advisory Council meeting. We get together every two months to oversee some of the grants that Springwell administers using funding from the Elder Americans Act. This morning we were talking about the Area Plan for the next four years, which spells out our funding priorities and the various efforts we will be supporting in various areas of concern.
One of the biggest issues facing us in the upcoming years is medical transportation. Many seniors who no longer drive, and who don't have family members to ferry them around, are very dependent on publicly-supported transportation services to get to their (sometimes frequent) medical appointments. As the need increases, the public services are getting cut back, and this will be a growing problem in the next few years.
What's out there now? Well, there's the T, which operates a special service called "The RIde" to provide pre-scheduled rides for elders and the disabled. But we hear that budget constraints are likely to cut back funding for The Ride, and even for the regular bus services that many elders depend on - especially those who live in the suburbs.
Some of the town Senior Centers operate medical transportation services, either paid or supported by volunteers. But often those will only transport people within the town. And as local hospitals close (supposedly to provide more efficient service), you have towns like Waltham with no local hospital, so residents must be transported out of town for many of their medical appointments. And although there are volunteers willing to do this driving, there are never enough.
Sometimes hospitals will run shuttles, but those often go from a central point and don't serve people who need home pickup and assistance. And of course they have limited hours.
Springwell subcontracts van services in our service area for certain types of medical trips that go across town lines. The money comes from the Elder Americans Act, and of course is not unlimited. So as these other services are cut back, and the need becomes greater, our ability to provide medical transportation becomes more and more stretched.
And then there are cabs, but in this area cabs are extremely expensive and can be out of reach for people living on limited incomes. If they're already struggling to pay a $20 co-pay, how can they be expected to pay $60 for a round trip cab ride every time they need to see a doctor or have a test or checkup?
So this is an area that needs a lot of work. People are quick to talk about taking away senior driving privileges, and certainly that needs to be done when seniors become a danger to themselves and others. But we also really need to think about providing other means for seniors to get to their medical appointments. (Not to mention being able to get out for shopping and other activities of daily life, which are less of a necessity, but are essential to their mental well-being.)
