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Valley to provide meals for Westwood House
Just days before
Pascack
Valley
Hospital pulls the plug on services to the seniors living in Westwood House, a solid contingency plan has come to fruition.
The meals and various support services, previously provided by PVH’s
Community
Outreach
Center , will now be provided by Valley Home Care, a Paramus-based division of
Valley
Hospital in
Ridgewood . Valley Home Care serves as a home care coordinator across Bergen and
Passaic counties, serving roughly 1,100 patients yearly.
Valeria Hartmann, managing director of Westwood House, explained that Westwood House management had contacted several different entities to find one willing to assume the role that PVH had played at the
Community
Outreach
Center . After considering the options, Valley’s proposal was chosen as being in the best interest of Westwood House residents.
“We have been hearing that a lot of doctors from
Pascack
Valley have already affiliated with Valley,” said Hartmann. This will facilitate an easier switch between hospitals.
The switchover, said Donna Fry of Valley Home Care, should be smooth.
“We feel privileged to help Val [Hartmann] out,” she said. “It’s not like we’re strangers to the scene over there.”
Valley Home Care will continue to provide $3 lunches to the seniors living in Westwood House and to those who participate in activities at the adjoining
Riley
Senior
Center . Exercise classes, programs, and screenings will continue at the senior center, now under Valley Home Care’s supervision. In addition, Fry said that Valley Home Care will offer increased social work services to the seniors.
One major change, said Hartmann, is that on-site nurse service will be reduced from 40 hours per week to 15. Van transportation, previously provided by PVH, will be reduced, and is still under discussion between Westwood House and Valley Home Care.
Borough officials in Westwood have already promised that the Westwood senior van will now be dedicated to medical transportation needs.
In spite of the changes, Hartmann emphasized that “Valley has been absolutely wonderful in coming to meet our needs.”
The proximity and extent of services offered by PVH was a boon to the seniors at Westwood House, and Hartmann rued the loss of the relationship built up over years.
“It’s a sin that it has to go,” she said. “At least we’re going to have food.”
Sarah Schillaci's e-mail address is schillaci@northjersey.com
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