Services for the aging need boost in state aid

This year, Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state Legislature have the opportunity to eliminate the wait lists for nonMedicaid home- and community-based services administered by the state Office for the Aging and provided by county

On behalf of the Save Burdett Birth Center Coalition, I want to thank the Times Union editorial board for calling on the state Department of Health to reject the proposed closure of the Burdett Birth Center at Samaritan Hospital in Troy.

For all the reasons cited in coverage and editorials, the closure is a bad idea that will harm pregnant people in Rensselaer County and adjacent rural areas. At a forum at Hudson Valley Community College, St. Peter’s Health Partners, Burdett’s parent organization, failed to respond adequately to concerns about transportation to and capacity at St. Peter’s Hospital in Albany or other local maternity services.

However, it was surprising that the editorial “Ms. James’ overreach,” March 6, suggested the attorney general’s office step away from its investigation into the proposed closure. Our attorney general has every right — and, in fact, the responsibility — to ensure

offices for aging across the state.

As of last September, county offices for the aging had a wait list of more than 16,000 older adult New Yorkers, which means that they did not have sufficient resources to provide that nonprofits are fulfilling their missions. Moreover, the attorney general’s Civil Rights and Health Care bureaus have the authority and responsibility to investigate actions that would harm access to care for medically underserved people.

Attorney General Letitia James has been the sole statewide elected official to step forward and openly question the St. Peter’s Health Partners' decisionmaking that led to a plan to close the only maternity service in Rensselaer County. It was she — not the state Department of Health — that held a fact-finding hearing in Troy last fall. She should be applauded for standing up for the pregnant people who rely on Burdett and demanding that St. Peter’s Health Partners justify its closure plan.

Ashley Saupp

Troy

in-home support services to thousands so that they can live safely and independently in their own homes.

It’s unconscionable that elected leaders seem to be ignoring the urgent needs of thousands of older New Yorkers