Governor’s Budget Threatens Senior Care Services

Help us defend vital senior care services.

We are faced with two critical issues…

During the FIRST YEAR of the biennium, the Governor’s budget proposes a 19% reduction in Medicaid rates for nursing homes and a 16% reduction in home and community-based services for the first year of the coming biennium. If enacted, the Governor’s proposals will seriously impact the funding and structure of services for elders and the disabled.

• Put simply, the proposed budget cuts are too deep. Cedar Sinai Park already subsidizes Medicaid Funding for elders it serves by $1.5 million dollars each year. A 19% cut in Medicaid rates would add almost $800,000 to that deficit. We cannot reasonably expect our organization and the very charitable Jewish community to be able to adequately fill that gap.  In addition, the proposed cuts to home and community-based services are antithetical to being able to move fragile clients to lower levels of care.

During the SECOND YEAR of the biennium, the Governor’s budget proposes a major restructuring of the system of care for seniors. The restructure will tighten nursing home admissions with the expectation that services be provided to frail elders in home and community-based settings.

• The state needs to bring together long-term care providers, medical providers and providers of affordable housing and other community services NOW in order to develop new and more cost-effective approaches to care and services. Postponing a massive restructure of the long-term care system to the second year of the biennium feels like a policy of “Ready, Fire, Aim.” To first cut budgets in a draconian manner and then expect providers to plan in a meaningful way will not result in effective and sustainable system reform.

You Can Help!

Our elders need you to advocate on their behalf.  Please contact your elected representatives and help protect seniors from drastic cuts in elder care services.

Jewish Actress Leads a Drama Workshop for RSM Residents

The famed Jewish actress and Portland Icon Wendy Westerwelle is coming to Rose Schnitzer Manor! Starting this Tuesday, Wendy will be volunteering with the RSM Drama Group to launch a new workshop where RSM participants can learn about character development, play readings and scene studies.

We’re thrilled to share that the drama workshop will be a regular occuring program starting on…

February 22nd at 6:45 p.m.
in Zidell Hall at Rose Schnitzer Manor.

Wendy Westerwelle has been an actor for over 30 years; for twelve years she was a core cast and board member of Portland’s late, great Storefront Theatre, helping develop seasons of original plays and Oregon premiers of contemporary plays. She developed and performed in dramas, comedies and burlesques, including Emergency Room, Babes on Burnside, A Burlesque, Holy Ghost, Les Belle Seour and the original production of Angry Housewives. While at Storefront Wendy developed a burlesque-monologue about Sophie Tucker, Soph: A Visit with the Last of the Red Hot Mamas. Wendy performed Soph to critical acclaim for sold out houses here in Portland and in Los Angeles at The Callboard Theatre in Beverly Hills.

Announcing Winners of the Maui Vacation!

The winners of the Maui Vacation Membership incentive are Steve Laveson and Lesley Isenstein!

Congratulations to Steve and Lesley! We hope you have a wonderful time enjoying your Maui vacation.  We also want to extend a huge thank you everyone who contributed to this year’s Robison Jewish Health Center Membership campaign.  Because of your Membership support, we can continue to provide our residents with the high-quality care they deserve.  Thank you for your generosity!

Steve & Lesley’s Maui Vacation Package Includes…

• 7-night stay in a one-bedroom garden view condominium suite at the Aston Ka’anapali Shores Resort.
• Two (2) Roundtrip Coach Air Tickets between Portland, Oregon and Kahului, Maui provided by Hawaiian Airlines.
• $100 total in food & beverage credit at the Beach Club Restaurant (located in the resort).
• Up to $250 for compact rental car, offered by Lee and Barbara Potts with Aloha Realty Group.

Special thanks to the following supporters for making this Maui Vacation Package possible: Aston Ka’anapali Shores, Hawaiian Airlines, Beach Club Restaurant, and Lee & Barbara Potts with Aloha Realty Group.

2011 Creative Writing Contest

We have received the results of the annual Oregon Alliance of Senior and Health Services Creative Writing Contest, and once again Cedar Sinai Park is well represented with several submissions being chosen to be read and a Judges Choice Winner, Molly Tulin.

Below is a table showing the winning entries for the 2011 Creative Writing contest. If an entry is marked as “Reading” then it will be read at the awards luncheon. Poems will be read in their entirety.

Congratulations to our winners! And thank you to Molly Trauten, RSM Activity Coordinator who worked with residents gathering their work.

CSP Winners of the 2011 Creative Writing Contest

Publication	Facility	Title	Author’s Name	Reading	Judges Choice
Poem	Rose Schnitzer Manor	Curiosity	Florence Blitch	x
Short Story	Rose Schnitzer Manor	Epstein and the Kindertransport	Charlotte Wiener	x
Poem	Rose Schnitzer Manor	Pioneer Spirit	Evelyn Hirsch
Poem	Rose Schnitzer Manor	To a Deceased Husband	Ruth Peretz Omenn	x
Poem	Rose Schnitzer Manor	Turning	Molly Tulin	x	x

Judges Choice Winner

“Turning”
By Molly Tulin

We speed along the highway
on an apple-crisp morning,
the sun catching the stippled dots
of muted colors in the distant hills
like a pontillo painting on cardboard,
a familiar far-off landscape changing
with the whim of a master’s brush.

Turning off we wind
into the Vermont hills
along roads fringed by trees
enfolding us with low-bending boughs
of trumpeting scarlets, freckled yellows
and retreating greens.
We meander past sun-bleached corn stalks
drying in fields like rows
of undressed scarecrows,
by hay rolled into wheels and stacked
against barn-siding, a rust-red silo
thrusting its turret
as if to vie with the nearby church spire
spiking through the trees;
past quarried piles of pebbles
limestone white against quiet blue;
towns leaning into each other
their stores spilling moccasins,
pumpkins and maple syrup –

instant images
slide by silently, beneath words
that cannot be said
in any other way, but stay
to sing in my soul.