“Medcast Plus” episode discusses home health aide for seniors

This month’s episode of “Medcast Plus,” a television program aimed at informing Brooklynites about various health issues with doctors and medical professions as featured guests, focuses on home care aides for senior citizens.

Larisa Chechelnitskaya, executive director of the Effective Home Care Agency, which helps seniors in a variety of ways, was featured on the show to discuss information regarding home health aides.

“The show is for helping mainly seniors, but also anybody that needs a home health aide,” said the show’s host Jazmin Ovalles. “There’s no specific age group. Basically, [Chechelnikskaya] wants to make sure that the person that the home health aide is being set up with is comfortable. They may go through many trials and errors, but they can always switch their home health aide. She wants to make sure the person is going to feel very cared for; they go out of their way to make sure the patient is not only taken care of but comfortable with their living situation.”

“I was giving information regarding services that we are providing to educate the community and who is eligible to receive the service,” added Chechelnitskaya, who came to this country over two decades ago, went to college here and volunteered at hospitals for many years before opening her own organization. “Also we were talking about the challenges. The caregiver needs to be trained as we are providing a special service.”

Among these is a program being approved by Department of Health which allows a family member to choose the caregiver. “This benefits people in different ethnic groups who have a language barrier or people with mental challenges,” she explained. “It includes the disabled and the elderly. And we assist them with Medicaid applications and other special services.”

Ovalles also discussed the significance of the program.

“Some people watching at home may not know about it,” she said. “There may be a mom out there that has to watch her mother and her children and she’s probably in need of extra help [that she could apply for] if she knew that she might not have to pay for it because her mom’s insurance could cover it.”

Chechelnitskaya praised Medcast for the way it helps get information out to the community.

‘The idea of the show is great. I think it introduces important issues to the community,” she said. “There are some people working here all their lives that don’t know about Medicaid. We offer them free consultations with lawyers and because of the language barrier , families don’t always know what they sign up for. We just educate the community, and it’s not just the Russian community. It’s every nationality. We work together because we are living together in the same country.”

Gregori Romenski is the executive producer of the program.