TAKE FIVE!

November 03, 2020

Jenny Sanchez:
Hello, I’m Jenny Sanchez. Welcome to Sullivan 180 Presents Take Five!. Our guests today are David Foster and Raizy Mermelstein from Hamaspik HomeCare, David and RACI. Thank you both for joining me.

David Foster:
A pleasure to have the opportunity to try to get out our mission, what we’re about and what we’re trying to accomplish on behalf of the residents of Sullivan County. As a 501c3 non-profit home care I think the only nonprofit home care agency in Sullivan County, we consider it very important to make the Sullivan County residents aware of what home care services are available to them and what they actually have a right to receive.

Jenny Sanchez:
Could you please introduce your titles and expand on what you just said about Hamaspik HomeCare?

David Foster:
I’m director of upstate recruitment for Hamspik. We operate in New York city, the five boroughs of New York city and seven upstate counties primarily in the Hudson Valley. So what we do in Hamaspik HomeCare, we provide traditional home care services and the CD path, the consumer directed person assistance program,

Raizy Mermelstein:
I’m Raizy Mermelstein, the upstate regional director for Hamaspik HomeCare, a licensed home care services agency and Sullivan County is one of our servicing counties.

Jenny Sanchez:
What are some of the challenges you’ve faced during the course of the pandemic?

David Foster:
We hire from the recruitment side, including home care, we’re seeing administrative staff, the venues that normally were provided to us by government and commercial establishments belong over there because of the concern that the contagion, the various department of employment training that this various upstate counties sponsor were closed down commercial venues, where we went to go to recruit, we have recruiting events at shopping centers, malls, stores, et cetera. Those were very limited. So it’s been a real challenge in terms of getting, including home care aides and people who want to become home care aides in Sullivan County.

Jenny Sanchez:
And do you have any positive experiences that have come out of this you’d like to share?

David Foster:
Oh, definitely. I have for the past two months due to the very warm heartedness and the graciousness of Mr. Gordon Jenkins, the owner of [inaudible] supply on Broadway in Monticello and the former mayor of the village of Monticello. He’s allowed me to put out a table in front of the store for one day a week for the past two months. So I have gotten to know the people of the village of Monticello through the summer tourist season. For a little bit before that then was tourist season and now afterwards going into the fall. So it’s been a real experience of standing in front of Gordon store and seeing the various people come in primarily being mostly familiar with, I guess those folks would come up for the summer for the months of July and August. This has been a real eye opener and seeing exactly what are the challenges facing Sullivan County residents.

Jenny Sanchez:
You mentioned you are recruiting home health aides, personal care aides. What qualifications are necessary for these positions?

David Foster:
Ideally the person should have a certificate in New York state personal care attendant certificate, or New York state home health aid certificate. And if a person doesn’t have that, if they’ve provided three months of home care services over the past three years, we can get them qualified. If they have two verifiable references to that work, we feel they’re qualified for New York state PCA personal care attendant certificate, there is no educational requirement in terms of a high school diploma, but someone must have command of basic English being able to read, write, and speak basic English. Also, I think because of the geographic challenge in Sullivan County, we’re talking about primarily small towns being spread out over long distances. If you’re a resident of Sullivan County there is a need for one to have a car or personal transportation. And also, do you have a phone, because a home care aid has to be able to make a call, God forbid something happens to a patient while they’re at someone’s home, or maybe a change of assignment, or we have an emergency and we need someone to step up to take a case. So it’s certification, transportation and a phone.

Jenny Sanchez:
How can people reach out for more information or to apply for positions?

David Foster:
They can either call me at (855) 426-2774 extension 844 and leave a message or they can reach me by email. My email is dfoster@hamaspikhomecare.org. If I’m at my office, I’ll answer the phone. Please leave a message.

Jenny Sanchez:
Is there anything else either of you would like to share with our community?

David Foster:
One thing I’d like to say that I think Sullivan County has challenges. So I think part of the challenge of that also is getting adequate care and home care is a great way for a person always to maintain a healthy lifestyle. If a person is elderly person has certain disabilities, they’re home bound, keeping a person at home is a great way to keep a person’s spirits up and be able to fight off their condition or maintain their strength and their positiveness in their state of being home-bound. So we must be right here waiting, waiting to serve.

Jenny Sanchez:
So David and Raizy, thank you both so much for being here and for letting us know what you are doing to help Sullivan County.