The Motion Picture & Television Fund (MPTF), the entertainment industry’s health and social services charity, announced a change of resources under which the group’s hospital and long-term care facility will be phased out in favor of community-based programs that focus on allowing seniors to age in place in their homes for as long as possible. MPTF’s new emphasis on community-based care will build on existing efforts such as its Elder Connection program and Center for Aging, which provide social, financial, and healthcare services for industry seniors who want to remain in their own homes. The centerpiece will be a new network of Community Care Teams, consisting of MPTF doctors, nurses, and social workers who will reach out to Fund-eligible seniors in Southern California, whether they are in their own homes, in retirement communities, or in outside nursing homes, to ensure they are getting the support they need. The economics of maintaining the MPTF facilities were a losing proposition and threatened to bankrupt the organization if its losses continued to accumulate over the next few years as they have in the past.
“MPTF is initiating these changes because it’s the right thing to do, but the fact is that we have no choice,” said Jeffrey Katzenberg, chairman of the MPTF Foundation Board. “Although we are in good shape today, the acute-care hospital and long-term care facility are generating operating deficits that could bankrupt MPTF in a very few years. The entertainment community depends on MPTF for a wide range of social and medical services—everything from healthcare to emergency financial assistance to childcare and family counseling—and if MPTF doesn’t do something now, pretty soon it won’t be able to do anything.”
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