Elder abuse project announced for Ga. county
By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer
May 25, 2010
DeKalb County is teaming with Emory Healthcare to offer a new program to investigate abuse of senior citizens and find them temporary shelter — one of the first such programs in the country.
Officials from the county and university announced the program at an Atlanta news conference Tuesday morning.
DeKalb County had only 40 substantiated cases of elder abuse last year, but officials believe its a vastly underreported problem.
"With elder abuse, we are as a nation where we were with child abuse and domestic violence 25 or 30 years ago," said Robert James, DeKalb County's solicitor-general.
The county sees thousands of reports of other forms of domestic abuse annually, he added. Officials think there may be as many as 1,300 cases of elder abuse in the county annually.
In the past, some abused seniors have been taken to a hospital emergency room and parked there, with no place to go, and may even be discharged back to an abusive environment. In some cases, they are left in their home, even in instances where they were unable to care for themselves, James lamented.
"Government authorities didn't know what to do with them," he said.
In the new program, DeKalb County's police, fire and rescue workers make sure a senior citizen in a potential abuse case is safe. Then they tell a program volunteer coordinator. Emory will provide a physical exam looking for signs of abuse, and will tell law enforcement of their findings for possible legal investigation.
If no shelter is available that is safe or provides necessary medical care, Emory also will provide a bed for them at its Wesley Woods Geriatric Hospital for as long as 30 days afterward.
Emory can provide up to three beds at a time for the program, said Dr. Thomas Price, chief of medicine for the geriatric care center that is part of the Wesley Woods campus.
The program is billed as one of the first of its kind in the nation. A program that provides shelter to abused seniors has been operating in New York, called the Hebrew Home at Riverdale. And one in California advocates and looks for elder abuse, but doesn't offer shelter. Another program has been announced in Colorado, but that's not yet operating, James said.
The program is being called a "pathway," because it doesn't have a budget or separate administration. Rather, it's a collaborative effort between Emory, DeKalb County and the Georgia Division of Aging Services. A local task force on elder abuse, created three years ago, devised the plan.
SOURCE: StamfordAdvocate.Com
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