Multicultural Home Care helps put patients at ease in Lynn

LYNN – A blood-pressure cuff drawn tightly around her arm, Inessa Osher breathes easily, chatting in Russian with her visiting nurse.Like thousands of senior citizens across the North Shore, Osher requires nursing care in her home, in this case the Leisure Tower apartments on Farrar Street, where she lives with her husband, Mikhail.On a recent snowy day, registered nurse Lynbov “Luba” Malinkovich included Osher in her round of patients. The two women have developed a close relationship and trust, much of it due to their common culture and language.”Inessa usually has lots of questions and I do my best to answer them. I check her medications and make sure she is taking them properly. I check her vital signs and see how she is feeling,” said Malinkovich, a Swampscott resident who arrived in the U.S. in 1990 and received her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Salem State College. “She is a wonderful woman.”For the past 10 years, Malinkovich has been employed by Multicultural Home Care, which has nearly 500 employees and a central office in the Clocktower Business Center on the Lynnway. The company has forged a niche in the regional healthcare market by providing nurses who not only possess medical expertise but are also matched by culture and language to their patients.Multicultural Home Care, which services the North Shore and Merrimack Valley, was named in January to the 2008 HomeCare Elite, a list of the most successful Medicare-certified home health care providers in the U.S.”We believe in the case-management model of care, and strive to ensure that each patient is seen by the same clinical team members from admission to discharge,” said Carolyn McCarthy, the company’s chief executive officer.According to Charlene Ball McKenzie from the company’s business development team, Multicultural Home Care was established in 1995 to fill a void with the home health care market. “We provide services with cultural understanding and in the same language as the client,” she said, noting that the nursing staff collectively speaks at least six languages – English, Spanish, Russian, Cambodian, Cantonese and Haitian-Creole. “When the nurse speaks the same language and understands the culture, it puts the patient at ease.”The ability to provide home health care nurses who speak foreign languages is particularly important in cities like Lynn that historically have been immigration gateways and home to varied cultures.Osher, 73, a great-great grandmother who worked as a construction engineer in her homeland, was quick to sing the praises of her Russian-speaking nurse. “Luba is very professional and very knowledgeable,” she said in her native tongue, but a translator wasn’t needed. An expression of gratitude and the look in her eyes said it all.As McKenzie put it, “I guess you can tell Inessa thinks Luba is terrific.”The Senior Care Options Program from Commonwealth Care Alliance, a non-profit comprehensive health insurance and care management program for those age 65 and older who live on the North Shore and have Mass Health (Medicaid) Standard, referred Osher to the nursing agency.