Jack Gelman has always been above average, and never more so than the present.
The median age at Menorah Park, a 149-unit senior housing complex in San Francisco, is 77. Gelman is five months shy of his 90th birthday, and his wife, Lucille, is 87.
“That’s pretty high! We’re above average and we’re proud of it. That sounds funny, to be proud of being old. But we are. We’re lucky,” said the loud and energetic Gelman with a laugh. “I’m legally blind and have a hearing disability, but so what? I’m still moving around so I’m very lucky.”
Yet even an above-average 89-1/2-year-old (as Gelman refers to himself) can run into medical problems. Fortunately for the 14-year Menorah Park resident, a checkup is only as far away as a trip downstairs.
Starting at 8 a.m., lines are already forming for the Health Corner, even though the service won’t open its doors until 8:30. A physicians’ assistant and nurse practitioner fluent in both English and Russian — around 80 percent of Menorah Park’s 196 residents are Russian-speakers, with many possessing little to no English skills — check residents’ blood pressure, blood sugar levels, weights, offer health advice, and, if needed, a whole lot more.
With the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation underwriting the program’s $90,000 budget this year, Health Corner is now open four days a week, and, in the near future, perhaps even more.
“For me, they save my life because I have high blood pressure. Every day in the morning I visit them and they check my blood pressure and I know what I have to do to be in good health,” said 73-year-old Alexandra Shilman, a Ukrainian emigre.
“I remember once, I had very high blood pressure, and they told me what pills to take and, in an hour, came to my room and checked my blood pressure again. They are very attentive. They help a lot of people, it’s always a big line there.”
Between 50 and 70 patients avail themselves of Health Corner’s services every week.
In addition to daily monitoring, Russian-speaking Svetlana Greenberg, a physicians’ assistant, and nurse practitioner Valerie Maerowitz also relay information to and from doctors and HMOs for English-challenged residents, provide emotional reassurance and gently chide their patients to take better care of themselves.
“Very many Russians are concerned about their diets. And we don’t eat the same things Americans do. We fry lots of things, unfortunately. We cook less healthy, and when people get older, it becomes more prominent,” said Maerowitz.
“We tell them it’s better not to fry but boil, to drain the fat, don’t eat the lard, get more greens and vegetables. Some people who are not able to take care of themselves very well, we can work with social services to try and get them into the Jewish Home.”
For Gelman — who won a $50 gift certificate years back for coining the phrase “Health Corner” — the program has proved particularly helpful.
“I went in there one day and the nurse noticed fluctuations in my veins. It was erratic,” recalled the longtime Bronx resident. “I got an appointment to see the doctor that same morning and in the hospital they took a quick cardiogram and put me on a medication for an irregular heartbeat. I really tout Health Corner, it’s a great place.”
For Nurit Robinson, Menorah Park’s executive director, the beefing up of Health Corner has been one of few changes she can recall during her short tenure.
Robinson — who grew up in Scotland, relocated to Israel for more than 20 years and then settled in the U.S. a decade ago — said she doesn’t have any plans to turn things upside down at the senior living facility. Nor should she.
Since Menorah Park is government funded “you have to function within a pretty set framework and the government doesn’t change too often,” explained Robinson, who took over for Andrea Rubin just over a year ago. “This is not an organization that will change an awful lot. Basically, I’ve worked to refine and build on the basis of what there is.”
The augmenting of Health Corner and addition of more Russian-speaking staff, however, are definitely significant changes for the better, according to Robinson, who is learning Russian herself.
“Right now there are a lot of Russian people here, and the nurses are also Russian, which is very helpful,” said 16-year resident Nina Margolin, originally from Minsk.
“We don’t need translators. We walk in and they know a lot of our names and give a lot of good advice what to do. They are very nice girls.”