Wanted: Home health aides
Every Thursday morning, Lisia Colegrove, a home health aide with North Country Home Services, begins her shift by preparing a cup of coffee for her client, Thomas Wells. She’ll spend the next couple of hours doing light housekeeping, laundry and helping Wells get in and out of the shower. She’ll also check on his two dogs, Angel and Digger, and make sure that Wells is keeping up with his medications and has everything he needs, including his emergency alert device and an adequate supply of oxygen. Occasionally she’ll take him to a doctor’s appointment.
She’ll make him breakfast: fried eggs, bacon and toast.
Like many elderly residents in the Adirondacks, Wells, a 69-year-old former farm hand and machine operator who lives in Willsboro, relies on aides like Colegrove to assist with basic home care services. He has visits three days a week for two and a half hours each day. Without it there’s a good chance Wells, who has a number of chronic health issues, would end up in a nursing home or the emergency room. Asked how he managed before connecting with
