Supporters rally for Kupuna Caregivers Program measure

Irene Martin, a 30-year-old social worker assistant at a nursing facility, mother of two youngsters and a graduate student, stopped working to share in challenging caregiving duties with her sister of their ailing parents.

Their 64-year-old mother, with advanced lupus, diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, can no longer bathe herself. Their father, 62, who is a legally blind diabetic and a multistroke survivor with stroke-related dementia, worries them due to his poor judgment and frequent falls.

Martin rallied Monday at the Capitol Rotunda with about 100 others to support the Kupuna Caregivers Program, which provides assistance to the family caregiver who also works outside the home full time.

The program is designed to keep the employed family caregiver working by paying outside service providers directly up to $70 a day, giving some respite to family who care for seniors.

“It always comes down to money,” said Gary Simon, president of the Hawaii Family Caregiver Coalition. “The projections from the Executive Office on Aging, with twice-a-week day care, it can serve (up to) 549 people per year. It could save a few hundred people, but it’s not going to save everybody.”

Senate Bill 2988 will be heard at 8:30 a.m. today by the House Health and Human Services Committee in House Conference Room 329. The Senate has appropriated $4 million to the program for fiscal year 2019, and the House position is $2 million, an AARP official said.

In 2016 the Legislature funded $600,000 for the fiscal year 2017 pilot program, which launched Dec. 13. As of March 2 it has helped 25 caregivers with varying needs, said Barbara Kim Stanton, AARP Hawaii executive director.

“It helps a lot,” Martin said. “I know for myself, the most I was spending beyond food was on transportation … to take them to their doctors’ appointments,” when she or her sister could not leave work to do so.

Pedro Haro, Caring Across Generations Hawaii advocacy director, said, “We have the largest number of elderly per capita in Hawaii compared to the rest of the nation and the longest life span in general. It’s the perfect combination for us to try a different model than the rest of the nation.”

“People who age in place have a healthier outcome than people who live in a facility,” he said. “Most people don’t want that responsibility taken away,” adding that caring for seniors is part of Hawaii culture and the different cultures that make up Hawaii.

Stanton said, “Caregiving is very costly in terms of not just the caregiver’s health, emotions and time expended, but in direct expenses and in direct income and potential loss of income and retirement savings.”

Family caregivers annually spend on average roughly $6,954 in out-of-pocket expenses in 2016 dollars, and $11,923 for long-distance caregivers, she said. The typical family caregiver, 50 and older, who leaves the workforce loses an estimated $303,880 on average in income and benefits over her lifetime.

Martin said her parents moved back in February to their original home in San Diego, where they qualified for low-income housing, food is cheaper and there are more avenues for assistance for caregivers and seniors.