KentuckyOne Health awarded $206,116 grant for LIFE Program to benefit senior citizens in Belize City - Archived

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For More Information:
Barbara Mackovic, Senior Manager, Media Relations
502.587.4230 or 502.641.5461                                                                                  
[email protected]

KentuckyOne Health awarded $206,116 grant for LIFE Program to benefit senior citizens in Belize City

Louisville, Ky. (August 17, 2015) – KentuckyOne Health has been awarded a $206,116 grant to support LIFE: Living Independently in Full Existence, a program that will improve quality of life for seniors living in the Southside of Belize City, Belize.

Together with the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, and under the leadership of Belizean native and social worker Sr. Carlette Gentle, a network of collaborative local organizations will administer the program. It will focus on measurably improving five dimensions that impact the health and well being of older persons including social supports, housing, food access, medical care and transportation.

The program will focus on improving access to health care for seniors, addressing food insecurity, connecting seniors to medical services and helping them to self-manage their health and well being. In addition, the group will also complete 10 home improvement projects annually for program members.

“KentuckyOne Health is committed to the success of this international initiative, a concrete example of our purpose in action,” said Brian Yanofchick, senior vice president of mission integration, KentuckyOne Health. “We’ve committed substantial human resources from our Healthy Communities team to guide this effort and its ongoing management. We believe it will have a real, long-term impact on the lives of seniors in this marginalized community.”

Seniors living in the Southside of Belize City possess a great need for these services, as 41.3 percent live below the poverty level and struggle to meet their basic daily needs. Because many seniors did not pay into the Belizean Social Security system, which was implemented in 1982, they do not qualify for the benefits in retirement. Poor infrastructure and public services, as well as violent crime, are other limiting factors that negatively impact the lives of these senior citizens.

The grant is from the Mission and Ministry Fund of Catholic Health Initiatives, the national health care system that includes KentuckyOne Health. Each year, the Mission and Ministry Fund award a portion of its grant monies to programs, like LIFE: Living Independently in Full Existence, that serve the international community.

Since it was established in 1996 with guidance from the health system’s founding congregations, the Mission and Ministry Fund has awarded 452 grants totaling more than $63 million to programs across the globe. The fund was established through contributions from Catholic Health Initiatives’ facilities across the nation.

“Finding new and innovative ways to improve the health of communities has always been the mission that guides CHI,” said Kevin Lofton, president and chief executive officer of Catholic Health Initiatives. “We’re very proud of the collaborative work that KentuckyOne Health is doing. Their work benefits us all, because health is truly a global issue.”

LIFE: Living Independently in Full Existence has the attributes Catholic Health Initiatives seeks when awarding Mission and Ministry Fund project grants: it meets an identified community need, is innovative, able to be replicated and promotes collaboration with other organizations.

About KentuckyOne Health
KentuckyOne Health, the largest and most comprehensive health system in the Commonwealth, has more than 200 locations including, hospitals, physician groups, clinics, primary care centers, specialty institutes and home health agencies in Kentucky and southern Indiana. KentuckyOne Health is dedicated to bringing wellness, healing and hope to all, including the underserved.  The system is made up of the former Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s HealthCare and Saint Joseph Health System, along with the University of Louisville Hospital and James Graham Brown Cancer Center. KentuckyOne Health is proud of and strengthened by its Catholic, Jewish and academic heritages.

About Catholic Health Initiatives
Catholic Health Initiatives, a nonprofit, faith-based health system formed in 1996 through the consolidation of four Catholic health systems, expresses its mission each day by creating and nurturing healthy communities in the hundreds of sites across the nation where it provides care. The nation’s second-largest nonprofit health system, Englewood, Colo.-based CHI operates in 19 states and comprises 102 hospitals, including four academic health centers and major teaching hospitals and 30 critical-access facilities; community health-services organizations; accredited nursing colleges; home-health agencies; and other facilities that span the inpatient and outpatient continuum of care. In fiscal year 2014, CHI provided $910 million in charity care and community benefit -- a nearly 20% increase over the previous year -- for programs and services for the poor, free clinics, education and research. Charity care and community benefit totaled more than $1.7 billion with the inclusion of the unpaid costs of Medicare. The health system, which generated revenues of almost $13.9 billion in fiscal year 2014, has total assets of $21.8 billion. Learn more at www.catholichealthinitiatives.org.