A new adult day health care center will hold its grand opening this Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., at its site at 15 Bubier St., Lynn.
Michael Ouk, program manager, and Johnson Mao, are pictured inside the new Baton Adult Day Health Care Center that will have its grand opening on Saturday at 15 Bubier St., Lynn.
Michael Ouk, program manager, and Johnson Mao, marketing director, said that the Bayon Adult Day Health Care Center, is ready to open its doors at its newly renovated space, which was the former location of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless.
The center is geared toward seniors in the Asian-American community. People under the age 65 seeking to participate in programs at the center need to have been deemed disabled by either Mass. Health or the state Department of Health.
The owners of the Bayon Adult Health Care Center operate other adult day health centers in other states.
“They saw the gap in the industry here, seeing that there are other adult day health care center that were not able to meet some of the cultural needs of Asian-Americans,” said Ouk.
He expects seniors originally from Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, and China to be daily visitors to the center.
Ouk said the center will provide its patients services in skilled nursing, medication management, dietary monitoring, and personal hygiene assistance. The center will be in contact with each client’s primary care physician. Mao added that the center will provide transportation to medical appointments.
“We’re going to be seeing patients every single day and be able to catch symptoms early before they grow in to large problems,” said Ouk. “We’ll try to treat them and manage their care as much as possible at the center, and make sure that their physicians are aware of their symptoms and how they’re responding to treatment and medications.”
There will be a therapeutic activities director on staff, supervised by an occupational therapist.
“All the activities that we provide here – from tai chi, yoga, fitness programs to pool and table tennis – will have a medical or therapeutic benefit,” said Ouk. “We’ll also have a massage therapist, an acupuncturist, hairstylist, manicurist, and a reflexologist on board at the center.”
While directing its focus on the needs of Asian-American seniors, Ouk said the center will provide healthy food options for breakfast and lunch (along with a mid-morning snack). Staff members will be able to converse in patients’ preferred languages.
“We’ve been able to get feedback from the Asian-American community and known for a long time that the seniors have wanted a place like this and now that we’ve been able to meet that need, they’ve indicated what activities that they’d like to see here and which restaurants that want to cater the lunches.”
The center will be open Monday to Friday, from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.