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Dear PIEN and CARE members>, ANYONE WHO READS THIS-- this is not a fictional story-- it is the extremely sad truth. Would you work for $0,93/ hour?? Unfortunately, the drama continues... my PCA 's(personal care attendants) are now going to get paid only $0.93 per hour- or $8.50 for the nine hour shift from 10 PMto 7AM, by the State. IAM SO ANGRY! the new policy is that we patients have to pay out-of-pocket co-payments, which I cannot afftord, and, dig into our own wupply of money from our SSDI checks to get money per hour from our own resouroces, or we are transaferring our daytime hours of help to the night shift. GREAT, huh?? This past evening, I was RESCUED from being alone in a severe snowstorm all night, after asking the tel. operator at "0" for help for THREE hours .when the POLICE changed their minds and delivered my friend Jeff to help me at 11:30 PM. The scheduled PCA called me from a bar at 7 PM to say he was drinking. Mollie Baldwin, nurse and social worker, at her job at the Maine BEAS (Bureau of Elder and Adult Services bureaucracy) for 10 1/2 years, I am told ,has now been revealed to be BOTH the the rulemaker who is LOWERING personal care attendants' night shfit pay for 280 consumers like me to $8.50 per shift (about $0.93 per hour) for 10 PM to 7 PM, AND is also the needs assessor who cut my eligibilty from 13 to 5 hours per day of help.on October23, 2000. THese policies , NOT my state of health, make it impossible for me to stay home safely. NOW WHAT DO I DO, FELLOW PWP 's and OTHER FRIENDS?? THOSE PERSONS WHO HAVE ALREADY SENT MONEY OR OTHERWISE SHOWN INTEREST IN HELPING ME WEATHER THIS STORM are reminded to PLEASE, if you will, contact me OFF-list. I will NOT answer ONLIST requests or accept ONLIST contrib utions. Otherwise, I wouldl be in the hospital again trying to buy more nights in a bed After all this, I have NO caregivers for the next three nights-So i feel disillusioned about the concept that America is the land of free enterprise and free speech...where the democracy works. No, it doesNOT if you are disabled....poor, and exhausted. Ivan * > Dear PIEN and Caregivers List members: > > > > Friday night, I had to taxi downtown to Mercy Hospital, and > abandon my PD-adapted home. I had failed to find overnight > PCA (personal care attendant) help, and I was feeling > nearly exhausted. > > My usual daily PCA care hours , paid to the PCA's by > the Maine Medicaid Waiver for the Physically Disabled > (Consumer- Directed), have been assessed for the only time in 6 > years to > be drastically cut, from 13 hours per day, which I have had since > 1998, > to 5 hours per day. This is the simultaneous assessment of my > needs > by the Maine Bureau of Elder and Adult Services (BEAS) and by the > Provider Agency, Alpha One, Incorporated.