Around Town

Waveny LifeCare Network Marks 50 Years at Ceremony

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Fifty years ago, Waveny Care Center served 70 patients per day in one program. Today, Waveny LifeCare Network serves nearly 1,000 patients, residents and clients across 23 distinct service lines, according to the organization’s president and CEO, Russ Barksdale, Jr.

“Our journey speaks volumes about our dedication to quality and adaptability,” Barksdale told an estimated 70 community leaders last week, gathered to help celebrate the organization’s 50th anniversary this year. “Waveny LifeCare Network will and must continue to evolve to meet the dynamic and changing healthcare needs of our communities and our constituents,” Barksdale continued at the ceremony, held April 9. “It is in our DNA. Looking ahead, I’d like to take a moment to discuss our next phase and seek your active engagement and support.

Government

‘We’re Excited To Finally Leap into the ‘90s’: Town Switching to Digital Permitting Platform

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Addressing problems that Town Hall has had for years as New Canaan has fallen behind surrounding towns, officials said last week that the municipality is finally switching over to a system where residents and business owners can apply for, purchase and receive various permits online. New Canaan Health Director Jenn Eielson for about six months has served as co-project manager to phase in a new platform that’s expected to start a test phase Nov. 1, she said at Thursday’s regular meeting of the Health & Human Services Commission. “We’re excited about that,” Eielson said of the OpenGov Permitting & Licensing platform during the meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “That’s for all the various different health permits—restaurants, salons, wells, septic, pools,” she continued.

Government

ARPA: Town Weighs $400,000 Allocation to Waveny for Telemedicine

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Town officials are weighing a $400,000 allocation of federal funds for a well-established local nonprofit organization that provides healthcare services to seniors. The Board of Selectmen voted 2-0 last week in favor of recommending the American Rescue Plan Act funds for Waveny LifeCare Network’s “telemedicine” initiative. The initiative has already been shown to address a rising need in healthcare in town, Waveny’s president and CEO, Russ Barksdale Jr., told the selectmen during their April 5 meeting. “An investment in telemedicine today will give New Canaan a tremendous advantage in managing any future public health crisis, by providing a daily tracking and disease management program with a proven record to enhance timeliness and quality of care,” Barksdale said during the meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectman Nick Williams voted 2-0 in favor of the recommendation.

Alicia Meyer

Health & Human Services Commission Chair: Masks ‘Are Still Important’

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Mask-wearing, after serving as the first line of defense during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, now serves as the second line of defense behind vaccines, according to the chair of the New Canaan Health & Human Services Commission. 

A topic of much debate in New Canaan, the masks “are still important,” according to Dr. Harrison Pierce, a local pediatrician for more than four decades, 

“We know how they function,” Pierce said during the Commission’s regular meeting Thursday, held via videoconference. “They filter the droplets, the aerosol, and they do this with varying degrees of efficiency,” from cloth masks to surgical masks and N-95 masks. “If you are uninfected and you are wearing a mask, you decrease the risk of getting COVID by about 67%, and if you are infected and wearing one you decrease of giving it to others by about 75%,” Pierce said. “And if you are both wearing it there is about a 92% decreased risk of getting sick with COVID.”

The comments came during a a discussion on mask-wearing that Pierce said he added to the appointed body’s agenda after hearing from State Rep. Lucy Dathan (D-142nd) and Commissioner Jenn Hladick on whether the Commission had a position with respect to masks. 

The issue has made headlines recently, as Gov. Ned Lamont has asked the state legislature to extend his executive powers, including with respect to an order in which the governor empowers the Department of Public Health commissioner to set rules about what types of buildings require mask-wearing (including schools). In New Canaan, parents have spoken out at recent Board of Education meetings, and the school board is scheduled to meet at 2:30 p.m. Friday, in part to vote on whether to send a letter to Lamont and others in Hartford requesting “local control” in COVID-related decision-making.

Government

ARPA: Health and Human Services Commission Should Advise Town on Future Allocations, Members Say

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An appointed body that oversees New Canaan’s Health and Human Services departments should be doing more to help the town set priorities on spending what remains of $6 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funding, its members say. The Town Council last month approved about $2 million in “ARPA” spending, including allocations for “premium pay” for school and town workers, greenlink sidewalks, year-round public bathrooms, a generator and marketing. Yet the Health and Human Services Commission “should be giving more assistance and support to our elected officials on priority funding,” Russ Barksdale Jr., a member of the Commission, said at its Jan. 6 meeting. “I did not see any priority funding given to our local or town Health Department, as an example,” Barksdale said at the meeting, held via videoconference.