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With a crowd of excited nursing home residents and South Bronx community leaders cheering him on, Cardinal Dolan cut the ribbon to officially dedicate ArchCare’s newest all-inclusive care program for the elderly at San Vicente de Paul Catholic Healthcare Center.
Cardinal Dolan, in one of his first public appearances after returning from Rome where he was elevated to cardinal, also announced that the Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) will be expanded even further in the archdiocese.
This is “only the beginning of a beautiful harvest of health care through the PACE center initiative that we’re thrilled about in the Archdiocese of New York,” the cardinal said at a Mass in the nursing center’s chapel during his Feb. 23 visit.
He also reminded his listeners, some of whom were in wheelchairs, of Moses’ words to his people: “Choose life.”
“The Church always chooses life…that’s why we love you all so much here at St. Vincent de Paul,” he said. “That’s why the Church will never go weak or slack in taking care of our elders…you help us choose life.”
At the blessing and dedication ceremony, Cardinal Dolan said, “On this day, we open a new chapter in healing and caring of our elder brothers and sisters” at San Vicente de Paul.
Concelebrants of the Mass included Auxiliary Bishop Dennis Sullivan, vicar general, and Auxiliary Bishop Josu Iriondo, vicar for Hispanics and vicar for the South Bronx.
Among those attending was Father Louis Gigante, a retired priest of the archdiocese who helped to found the nursing home and who built much of the affordable housing that turned the neighborhood around.
The Bronx PACE center is the second one to be operated by ArchCare, the continuing care system of the archdiocese, as part of its plan to expand and diversify the services it offers to eligible elderly and chronically ill persons in their own homes and in nursing homes.
PACE, which is based on a nationally recognized model, combines an array of medical services with adult day care, home health services and other features to deliver the same level of care as a nursing home while allowing individuals to continue living safely in the community.
The Bronx center serves some 250 local people; ArchCare’s East Harlem center, which opened in 2009, serves more than 200.
In remarks at the dedication ceremony, ArchCare’s president and chief executive officer Scott LaRue said six more PACE centers will open in other locations in the archdiocese in the next three years, along with two new managed health care programs for people with chronic conditions. The new programs would expand services to 50 percent more seniors and disabled persons than currently, LaRue said.
The locations of the new programs have not yet been announced, but a press release given to reporters said the archdiocese intends to fund the expansion by selling two of its seven nursing homes: St. Teresa’s Nursing Home in Middletown and Kateri Residence in Manhattan. Buyers would have to continue operating them as nursing homes, the release said.
“When it comes to health care today, the only thing that is constant is change,” LaRue said. “Our society’s attitudes toward long-term care are changing, leading to an ever-increasing demand from families for quality nursing home care delivered outside an institutional setting ... ArchCare is changing as well, and for the better. We’re in the midst of an exciting transformation that will enable us to care for more people in need, whether they reside at home with their loved ones or in a nursing home.”
Cardinal Dolan, speaking to reporters informally as he was leaving, said the ArchCare plans and the PACE center shows that "the Church is keeping up with the times.”
“All the experts are telling that institutional residential care, while we’re always going to have it, while the Church is always going to be in that sacred apostolate, the future is that people want to stay home,” he said.
“But they need help during the day. They need medical care and food and hygiene and company and care of the soul during the day—and that’s what these PACE centers are all about,” the cardinal said.
