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SD public defense duties shift from counties to state; SCOTUS appears skeptical of restricting government communications with social media companies; Trump lawyers say he can't make bond; new scholarships aim to connect class of 2024 to high-demand jobs.

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The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

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Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

Home Health Aides Take On More Duties under New Proposal

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Wednesday, March 25, 2015   

NEW YORK - Home health aides play a big role in providing support to seniors who live at home, but in New York they're barred from performing some key health care tasks. A proposal in Governor Andrew Cuomo's budget would change that, allowing home health aides to administer eyedrops, change catheters, and take on other duties currently reserved for nurses.

David McNally with AARP New York says allowing advanced home-health aides to perform these tasks would be a significant relief to family caregivers.

"These tasks may or may not even be getting done on a regular basis in the correct way," he said. "We'd much rather see these advanced home health aides - who have been trained and who have been tested and were supervised by a nurse - doing these tasks and making sure they're done well."

The proposal faces a looming April 1 deadline for inclusion in Cuomo's budget. A similar plan came up in 2013 budget negotiations, but failed to make it into the final spending package after doctors' groups raised patient-safety concerns.

Laura Johnson, a family caregiver whose parents needed medical care that home health aides are prohibited from providing under the current law, said she had to hire an expensive nursing assistant and routinely make an hourlong drive to perform some tasks herself. Johnson said the governor's proposal would help people in her situation.

"It would give me piece of mind," she said, "knowing that when there was a minor medical treatment that is needed to be done, that I wasn't always the one that had to run over and take care of the problem - that I could leave it in someone's capable hands, with a person who's trained."

More than a dozen states allow home health aides to perform tasks they're barred from carrying out in New York.


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