SHERBURNE – The Sherburne Adult Day Health Care Center opened its doors to its first clients Monday morning. The center is intended to help keep people out of nursing homes for as long as possible by increasing their independence and providing respite for their caregivers. The facility is equipped with a spacious activity room, a medical room, sick room, outdoor patio, two bathrooms with an assisted shower room, kitchen, and staff facilities including a separate kitchen and bathroom.
An affiliate of the Crouse Community Center nursing facility in Morrisville, the Sherburne Adult Day Health Care Center aims to do everything a nursing home does, except on an outpatient basis. One registered nurse is on staff along with three C.N.A.s (Certified Nursing Assistant) to transport the patients, travelling 20 to 25 minutes daily to pick them up.
During a typical morning at the center, the patients will first be picked up by a C.N.A. driving the facility bus to the Sherburne center for a continental breakfast, said the Sherburne facility supervising RN and Director Marlette Yarnes-Halbert. The patients then participate in various “morning get moving” exercises, before a lunch and afternoon activities. They then return home, once again via the facility bus, between 2 to 4 p.m.
A favorite activity for some of the patients are the shopping trips they are frequently taken on. “We coordinate the shoping visits with our other two centers in Hamilton and Cazenovia to give our patients a chance to be social with their friends from the other locations,” said Crouse Community Center Social Worker Heather Anderson, who added they also try to do their shopping locally in the Sherburne and Norwich areas. Socializing is an important part of the adult day health center’s work, she said.
“We want the patients to feel as though they are a part of something, by doing everything from social shopping, to going out to eat, and even personalizing their medical needs,” said Yarnes-Halbert.
The food for the center needs to come from a federally-regulated facility. Subsequently patients are given a menu from the Hamilton Hospital and a C.N.A. drives there to pick up their choices.
The center also aims to help out families and caregivers by providing them with respite, while engaging people who frequently experience loneliness when they are left by themselves during the work day. Beth, a new patient at the Sherburne facility, has a loving family who does what they can for her, but she still ends up spending a lot of her time alone in an isolated location, reported Yarnes-Halbert. “Beth was screaming with excitement on the phone when we called her to tell her the center was opening up,” she proudly added.
Monday, two patients from the Hamilton facility, a married couple named Lewis and Carol, were on hand to help ease the transition as well as lend their insight to the Sherburne facility staff. “Lewis is our jokester,” laughed Yarnes-Halbert. “Though you have to watch out because he’ll steal your material.”
“I think what we all strive for is quality of life,” Yarnes-Halbert said. “The center gives people a place in the community to belong.”
One of ways in which the center tries to get its patients involved in the community is through self-advocacy groups.
Patients of the Crouse facility in Cazenovia would frequently get take out from a particular restaurant, but could not dine there because it was not handicap accessible. The self-advocacy group wrote a letter informing the restaurant owners how much the group loved the food, but would really like to be able to come in and enjoy the restaurant atmosphere. The owners obliged and made their building handicap accessible.
The facility can treat up to 17 patients per day. At the moment, there are four registered patients with four more pending their medical release. For more information, call (315) 684-9595.