At Home Nursing Care Foundation

California Home Health Care

Our Story

It started with a simple request

“Can you send a nurse to check on my wife?”

That was a call into our home health agency in 2017, from an older gentleman whose wife he said was “not doing very well”, but who refused to let him call 911. The man was clearly confused; his wife was speaking in the background. They had gotten our phone number from the yellow pages, when they looked up “nurse.” We had no idea of their living condition or resources, but our RN felt a calling to go visit them.

When the nurse got to the home, she realized that 911 needed to be called immediately. The woman was bleeding and lying on the floor after a fall. The wife explained her husband had late stage dementia and he simply couldn’t make decisions anymore. They had no life alert, no children living nearby, and they were terrified of being separated and forced into a skilled nursing facility.

Our nurse convinced the wife to go to the hospital with paramedics, then went through the home telephone book to locate a son overseas, explained the situation, and got the husband temporary care until his wife returned. Working with the son, the couple needed care management to align them with the right services, and they were safe and stayed together, at home.

This situation is not rare. Since that first call, we’ve had many more. Some of the calls are to find out how to get extra supplies that insurance doesn’t cover. Other calls involve hoarding situations or lack of housekeeping. Even the cost of laundry, an average of $4 per load at the laundromat, can leave seniors without properly cleaned clothing.

These are not homeless individuals or destitute people, they are the ones that simply get lost in the cracks, they’re not too needy to be flagged by social services, and they’re not so wealthy that they can have 24 hour a day private care.

The At Home Nursing Care Foundation was formed to help these individuals with what they need most; care management to align coordination of services, small medical equipment not covered by insurance, household services such as routine cleaning or small repairs, personal care assistance or laundry services. We also fund educational programs for family and paid caregivers, such as CPR training, scholarships for certifications or training, or simply a handful of quarters for laundry.

California Home Health Care

Scholarships

In order to make the first step in a home health career more accessible, At Home Nursing Care Foundation, Inc. is committed to rewarding at least one C.N.A/H.H.A Scholarship per year for five years, starting in 2020.

• Recipients are chosen by the professional advisory board.
• The scholarship is paid directly to the C.N.A/H.H.A program in advance of the recipient’s attendance.
• All applicants must meet the legal requirements to become a C.N.A/H.H.A in California, including a criminal background check, fitness for duty physical and TB test.
• Applications are accepted from June – August of each year, and a recipient is announced by the end of September of each year.