Radio Workshop

Budget cuts could hit immigrant diabetics hard (Transcript)

by Carla Sapsford

NATSOUND/Senior Center

[bring sound up for 3 seconds]

On any given weekday at the Elmhurst-Jackson Heights Senior Center in Queens, about 400 Asian and Latino seniors are gathered for group meals and socializing. For many of the elderly here, the meals are not only the highlight of their day socially, but often the only nutritious meal they get.

TAPE/Marta

We pay just one dollar for lunch, 75 cents for breakfast. Well, lunch is a very good, and very healthy. And very very cheap!

NARRATION [bed the senior center ambient]

Marta Navia is a Venezuelan senior who has been coming to this senior center for 18 years, and is one of New York's 1.3 million seniors. And Latinos like her are the largest growing segment of the elderly, about one fifth of the total. And elderly Latinos here face a distinct health risk: they are twice as likely to have -and die from - type two diabetes. Lucia Garcia is the associate director of this senior center, where about 40 percent of the seniors are Latino. She says her center can barely make do as it is.

TAPE/Garcia

It is hard. [CUT I am sorry to hear,] there are going to be budget cuts meals on wheels and weekend meals...what happens?...They have no food for the weekend. Sometimes, that is why you sometimes find seniors dead in their own apartment, in their own home.

NARRATIVE [bring down the senior center ambient]

Service providers for the elderly agree that Latino seniors are more isolated in their homes than Caucasian seniors. According to a recent New York City poll, 91 percent of Latino elderly do not even visit their local senior center. So these meals on wheels programs take on added importance for sick Latino elderly. Dr. Jacqueline Angel has studied elderly Mexicans for years as a sociologist at the University of Texas-Austin. She has seen first-hand what happens to Latinos when their diet goes south.

TAPE/Angel

There is going to be a rise in the prevalence of diabetes in the Hispanic population, because of the growth in the population overall. They have much lower mortality rates and have acute medical problems, especially diabetes.

NARRATION

And elderly Latinos with acute medical problems tend to rely on relatives rather than nursing homes. Many lack adequate health insurance or language skills to manage their diets on their own. Without meals on wheels, health care providers say, many Latino seniors skip meals or substitute cakes and cookies for hot food. These health professionals say that potential budget cuts are likely to end up costing the state and other taxpayers more money in the long run. They already see Latino seniors at area emergency rooms with complications related to diabetes, such as gangrene, liver damage or blindness.

TAPE/Monahan

Diabetes is epidemic in East Harlem, we have the highest rate in the city

NARRATION

Pat Monahan is a registered nurse who runs a home visit health service in East Harlem called Little Sisters of the Assumption. Her neighborhood is almost exclusively Puerto Rican and Mexican.

TAPE/Monahan

...certainly diet has something to do with it...It is not healthy for heart disease, and not healthy for diabetics.

NARRATION

The diet of many Latino elderly is partly based on cultural norms, and partly based on the fact that half of New York's Latino elderly live on less than $10,000 a year according to a recent study. This is far less than their Caucasian counterparts. Combine the diet of the poor with traditional Latino foods and you have a nutritional disaster...high in salt, sugar and carbohydrates. Think rice and beans, tortillas and fried plantains. So nutrititionists worry about how the budget cuts will play out, meal by meal. Miguel Otero is the program director for the Senior Nutrition Program at the East Harlem Council for Human Services.

TAPE/Otero

If the meals on wheels program get cut off, what happens, is a lot of them would probably starve.

NARRATION

Otero says budget cuts for nutrition programs force him to prepare senior center and meals on wheels lunches for $1.60 each. Potential cuts could mean the difference between serving seniors pork chops versus beans and franks. But city officials argue that no one wants seniors to die of malnutrition or diabetes. The Commissioner of the Department for the Aging, Edwin Mendez-Santiago, says the city won't leave its elderly behind.

TAPE/Mendez

Any senior who is in such a need that they can't give up the weekend meal, our case mgmt. agency should be involved to find other alternatives for them including our home delivery meals program we are not cutting.

NARRATION

Mendez is confident the city will find a solution to the budget crisis and continue core nutrition programs for the elderly. But if Mayor Bloomberg's budget does goes through, the cuts could begin as early as next January. Carla Sapsford for Columbia Radio News.