Home Health Care: Caring for loved ones in their golden years

MANILA, Philippines - “Who will take care of Lolo and Lola, Mom and Dad?” This is the usual question asked by a number of Filipinos who have decided to start a new life abroad; or by those who simply does not have the time to take care of their elder relatives due to the demands of everyday work and family. Torn between caring for their relatives and seeking greener pastures in other places, many Filipinos are looking for someone to give the best care and attention they would want their loved ones to get.

Dr. Mary Jean Villa-Real-Guno, managing director, said Home Health Care (HHC) was established primarily to address such a need.

“The middle generation of Filipino women is working. There are about five to seven million overseas foreign workers and millions of migrants. As such, many Filipino seniors are left at home with informal caregivers. With this changing demography, we felt the need to come up with an assisted living facility to provide supervision or assistance with the activities of daily living and monitoring residents’ activities to help ensure their health, safety and well-being,” said Dr. Guno.

HHC was established five years ago in October 2004 by a group of health care professionals who shared the experience of caring for a senior parent or relative. They started with one physician doing house calls and two staff members to market and establish the networks of health care professionals willing to do home health care. Today, HHC has a network of over 50 physicians, a registry of over a hundred nurses, caregivers, therapists, nutritionists willing to do home visits or be deployed in homes or communities. HHC has served over 10,000 patients for various medical services. It has established three assisted living facilities in Filinvest 1,Teachers Village, both in Quezon City and in BF International Village in Las Pinas.

Dr. Guno relates that caring for the seniors is not an easy task but in itself is rewarding. Given the Filipino culture of children having to take care of their elders in their own homes, the decision to place their parents or elders in assisted living facilities or generally called “home for the aged” usually is not accepted at first by the senior. However, eventually, they find that sharing a home with persons of the same age, common experiences while getting the proper care and attention from health care professionals is not such a bad idea after all. Among themselves, they find a new family.

The cost for living in such “homes” cost from about P25,000 to P50,000 per month depending on the needs of the elderly person — medicines, food and other therapies, if needed.

Dr. Guno relates that there are those who prefer staying in their own homes but wanting to get a comprehensive health care. As such, HHC applies a systematic approach in giving such services, starting with a comprehensive assessment of the person’s needs. After which, a network of fully licensed physicians, sub-specialists and other professional health care service providers provide a wide range of medical services in the comfort of their own homes. This includes house calls, medical procedures such as intravenous IV insertion, nasogastric tube or catheter insertion and care, nebulization. Physical therapy, nutritional assessment as well as hospice care are also given. Alternative treatments such as acupuncture and reflexology are also available.

“For us, this has become more of a mission and not just a business, but we know that it has to be sustainable to be able to grow so we can give the best service to our seniors who deserve nothing less in their golden years,” said Dr. Guno.