Life In the Slow Lane

Learn From End-of-Life Lessons

An Allentown woman talks about how she dealt with her husband’s last days.

  End-of-life issues are too complex to be well-served by a bumper sticker mentality. One side can proclaim “Death with Dignity” and the other “All Life is Sacred,” but when it comes right down to it, the long, painful trudge toward death during a lengthy illness is often messy and complicated. No one brought that home better after last week’s column than Marjorie Horton of Allentown. I had written about the deaths of Charles Snelling and his wife, Adrienne, and Horton responded eloquently about her own experience with her husband, Jack. Jack had been diagnosed with dementia in 2003 and for the next eight years, she took care of him at home – with the help of aides -- only putting him in a nursing home in the last three months of his life…

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PA's Plan to Balance Budget? Cut Nursing Home Care.

Zogby says series of fund redirections will be permanent

By Stacy Brown | PA Independent HARRISBURG — Gov. Tom Corbett wants to cut $161 million from nursing home care through the state's medical assistance program to help balance this year's proposed $27 billion budget. But, some say the funds are needed, because Pennsylvania’s senior population is among the largest in the nation — and rising — putting nursing-home care in high demand. The cuts proposed would affect nursing homes and care provided by nurses in the private homes of senior citizens. The latter generally includes providing two or more hot meals per day, laundry, cleaning, housekeeping and other incidental care. "We understand that the administration is facing real revenue challenges, while at the same time the senior population in…

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