A San Diego health plan for seniors who prefer to live at home, but have chronic health issues, is expanding with a new facility in Chula Vista.
Bingo is one of the many social activities to improve the quality of life for seniors 55 and older at the St. Pauls PACE program. It started downtown on Elm Street in 2008 serving more than 300 older adults, including Eileen Weber, 68, who lives in the Encanto area.
"Somehow with age, people don't really listen outside, but here they do," she said.
Weber suffers from a long list of chronic ailments, including a lung disease making it difficult to breath.
"I have gastric problems, scoliosis and hardware in my back that's not doing so well," she said.
When Weber came to the center two and a half years ago she couldn't even walk on her on.
"Everybody takes an interest in you as a person and you make friends from the people who come here and it's really phenomenal," she said.
PACE is designed for seniors whose medical problems make it impossible to stay home without help from doctors, nurses and caregivers. That's what makes the program unique because it provides all those services under one roof.
"We figure out what a senior needs and they don't have to go anywhere else, we provide the medical, the specialist, transportation, nutritional services, food and homecare services if they need home care," Carol Hubbard said. She's executive director of PACE.
The program is funded by Medicare, Medicaid and the state Department of Health Care Services.
