The Petersburg Medical Center’s Home Health office has moved from the Petersburg Indian Association building back to the hospital’s main campus. Home Health is now in the old Petersburg Public Health offices, next to the hospital’s specialty clinic.
Ruby Shumway manages Home Health, which provides at-home medical care for people who need it. She said that, while the Petersburg Indian Association offices weren’t far from the medical center, the distance made it hard to connect with other departments.
“I am most excited about being able to help improve the communication,” Shumway said. “When people are in the hospital and they need to go home on home health, I can be able to be up there and say, ‘Hey, this is what we can provide.’”
Home Health runs the Cedar Social Club, Petersburg’s adult day program. That program will stay at the PIA building and will have more space now that Home Health has moved.
The department’s office has moved a lot in recent years. Shumway says Home Health has spent time at the main hospital, the hospital’s apartments, the basement of the Elk’s Lodge, and then the PIA building for two years before moving back to the old campus.
And this likely won’t be Home Health’s final location. The medical center building is old and needs frequent repairs. Administrators are working on building a new campus and plan to build a facility dedicated to long-term care.
While the next hospital building is still in the design process, CEO Phil Hofstetter said he hopes to have Home Health housed there. He said the program is an important part of medical care in Petersburg — the community’s population is aging, with seniors over 65 making up a quarter of the population.
As the population gets older, Hofstetter said Home Health will continue to be an important part of medical care.
“It’s the future, I think,” he said.
Shumway said Home Health currently has 16 patients under its care, but she too anticipates a rising need for the service.
