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Trinity center plans increase in day care for seniors By TONY BOOM Mail Tribune ASHLAND - Expanded services are coming to Trinity Respite Center, which provides day-care assistance for adults with memory problems. Now offering two days of care each week, an additional day will be offered in February. A September move to a new home will increase the center's hours and days of service as well as how many people it can serve. Trinity signed a five-year lease in December with Mountain Meadows, a retirement and residential care community in Ashland. The space will be 3,000 square feet in condominiums that are under construction. The new space will add 750 square feet over the current site, Trinity Episcopal Church's Parish Hall. The center will operate five days a week with longer hours. Client numbers will increase from 16 to 24 per day. The program provides relief for family members caring for patients with Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease, stroke and other memory problems. The center has a waiting list for new clients, but the additional day of service will make more spaces available. Ashland Community Hospital Foundation is the nonprofit sponsor of the center. "These folks are all at the point where they really can't be left alone, but they are with families that care," said Elizabeth Hallett, center administrative director. "We are also there ... to create a social setting they can't get by being home." Under the center's current fee structure, a patient attending both days pays a maximum of $360 per month. Scholarships are available. Program director Shiela Ettlich and nurse consultant Dorothy Straw, who retired in December, started the program in 1992 with a $10,000 federal grant. Ettlich said not having to set up and take down the center's equipment each day "will save a lot of time." Programs will be adjusted as the center settles into its new space. The space will include an additional bathroom and staff offices. There will also be a community education room. The center recently gave an early memory-loss program for clients and their families. Trinity offers social care, but the nurse provides medication management and charts changes in the patients' conditions to help update care plans. The center has six employees and will hire two more people to run the early memory-loss program. Thirty-seven volunteers who work either a half or full day each month assist staff. Trinity Episcopal has provided the hall rent-free. At Mountain Meadows, the center will pay a $225 condominium association fee and minimal rent. "Apart from the condo fee, its almost free," said Hallett. "It's a remarkable gift on their part." A $106,000 fund-raising effort to expand staff and hours for the new facility has started. Ashland resident Narcissa Kelley has donated $27,000. Hallett will seek a match by the community and grants from foundations. Grant support last year came from the Carpenter Foundation, Northwest Health Foundation, Algonac Foundation, G.F. Butler Fund and the Peninsula Community Foundation. The hospital foundation contracts with Ashland Community Hospital to provide payroll services, labor and supplies for the center, said hospital administrator Jim Watson. Trinity serves as the hospital's primary support for Alzheimer's patients. Reach Ashland bureau reporter Tony Boom at 482-4651, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.