The New York State Department of Health has decided to reopen medical model adult day health care programs in phases starting April 1.

These programs have been shut down since March 2020.

Sixty-year-old Michele D’Ambrosi is one of about 8,000 New Yorkers with disabilities and comorbidities who relies on the services of adult day programs.

She has diabetes, cellulitis, osteoarthritis, and peripheral vascular disease. She lives alone in an apartment in Rensselaer, but attended the Grand Rehabilitation and Nursing Adult Day Healthcare program in Valatie three days a week before the pandemic forced the program to close.

She received meals, therapies, medication, sugar checks, and assistance with showering.

For the last year, D'Ambrosi has been getting meal deliveries, wellness checks, and has weekly communications with nurses and her doctors from "The Grand."

But the thing she misses most is the ability to socialize in-person with her friends.

“I had somebody to talk to, somebody to see. It’s not fun staying in this building. Now that it’s getting nice out, I can go outside, but still, that’s not going and associating with a lot of people. Well, not a lot of people, but I had my friends. And now it’s like, alright they’re all gone,” said D’Ambrosi.

D’Ambrosi doesn’t know exactly when she’ll be able to return the day program, but she says that day can’t come soon enough.