Resident baffled with directive for seniors to find new rehab site

I believe there is a health-care mistake in the making. The issue to which I refer is the Rehabilitation Cardiovascular Fitness Program at Freehold Township’s CentraState Medical Center in which seniors have been participating for years. Now we are told to go find another setting, to work out on our own or at the local gym.

What in the world is the thinking at CentraState Healthcare System? Why discontinue this program for seniors, widely used and of excellent quality?

This is a program that, by providing well-monitored and accessible exercise, changes people’s lives and improves their cardiac health, thereby realizing significant savings in health-care costs.

Seniors have come to rely upon this program as a safe, secure way to maintain good health through exercise.

We are now being abandoned by the program.

It is disingenuous to tell us that we are now prepared to maintain our own cardiovascular fitness program. It’s risky for seniors who are under treatment for coronary heart disease or who have recovered from a heart attack to exercise on their own, without the supervision and monitoring of health-care professionals.

The administration must have their heads in the sand on this decision. Without a doubt the best, most appropriate cardiac fitness program is here at this hospital. It is made possible by a staff of nurses that have the highest expertise in this field of nursing. While there are fitness centers in this area, they should not be considered to be cardiac care. Most of them do not have registered nurses or doctors at their facilities, nor do they have monitoring systems.

Doctors in the cardiology field know that monitoring of exercise is most important in maintaining an exercise regimen for cardiac fitness, and these same doctors are doing nothing to prevent the cancellation of this program, essential for seniors or other patients.

With the senior population increasing at a dramatic rate, it’s hard to believe the CentraState Medical Center is cutting such a critical health-care service for this population. Rather than close the program to so many seniors, devise other ways to address any issues with it that the hospital may have. This should be a wake-up call for cardiac patients, especially seniors — let CentraState administration know what this program means to you and lobby for its continued availability.

John T. Mangan

Jackson