STATE SENATOR
Martha Marx
DEPUTY MAJORITY LEADER
LISTENING TO YOU
- Representing
- Bozrah,
- East Lyme,
- Montville,
- New London,
- Old Lyme,
- Old Saybrook,
- Salem,
- Waterford
State Senator Martha Marx (D-New London), Senate Vice Chair of the Public Health Committee and a career visiting nurse, today issued a statement following Yale New Haven Health’s Health at Home Southeast announcement that its Nurse Family Partnership and Wellness program will not renew contracts with surrounding towns and will cease services to impacted communities at the beginning of the next union contract on June 30. This will result in the loss of approximately eight union jobs.
The Nurse Family Partnership sends nurses directly to the homes of at-risk pregnant mothers and follows the mother and baby from pregnancy to delivery through three years of age. The wellness program provides a part-time nurse to the local homeless hospitality center, nursing services at local senior centers, and makes home visits to some homebound patients in certain municipalities. Municipalities in south central Connecticut and the VNASC was contracted to provide those services. Towns no longer have nurses working for them and there is no stated succession plan for those who will provide these services.
The statement follows:
“Yale New Haven Health’s decision to end its Nurse Family Partnership contracts and wellness services is one seeking short-term gain at the expense of long-term community pain. YNNH has taken away some very important services that don’t just provide unique benefits but are directly vital in the towns they’re offered in. In addition to the potential layoffs this decision will bring for nurses, these programs will leave vital services unfulfilled in our communities, leaving patients and community needs unmet and in some instances sharply reducing the quality of care homebound and disabled patients will receive. The federal government working to slash important programs is bad enough. For Yale to cut them further in our backyard is going to worsen already severe impacts.”
Contact: Joe O’Leary | 508-479-4969 | Joe.OLeary@cga.ct.gov
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