LONG BEACH, Calif. \u2014 At first glance, one wouldn\u2019t think the Community Living Center is a skilled nursing facility serving veterans, and that is intentional, said Dr. Jaza Marina, chief of geriatric and extended care.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is built on the VA, a small house model. So it\u2019s meant to look like a home,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Located at the Tibor Rubin VA Medical Center in Long Beach, the new building is equipped with everything from kitchens, a chapel, and even a beauty salon and barber shop.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the place Vietnam War veteran Bill Jimenez has been living in.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I first saw it. I said, \u2018Well, it\u2019s a nice-looking place,\u2019\u201d said Jimenez.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He has been receiving hospice care there and said he enjoys going out to the patio for little weather breaks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes you walk back and forth, you know, so that I move my legs. At least I\u2019m doing some type of exercise,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The center is not just about addressing physical needs. Marina said the inside design is aimed at their wellbeing. She explained that language matters, which is why patients are called residents, the facility is called a community living center, and medical care items are hidden behind frames.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The new facility is also triple the size of the 1960s building it is replacing. It now has space for 120 beds, with private instead of shared rooms and communal spaces like dining and living rooms.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe focus on people that are post-hospitalization that may need physical therapy, occupational therapy. They may need complex wound care. Finish up I.V. antibiotics,\u201d said Marina.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The expansion means it\u2019s also helping reduce the load at the main hospital.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are always having meetings on if they are over capacity,\u201d Marina said. \u201cIf there are borders in the emergency room, they may reach out to us and say, hey, could you review these patients particularly so that we can try to discharge them to your facility.\u201d<\/p>\n
These upgrades were a long time coming, as military mom Cely Ochoa Yim explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur veterans deserve a lot more than we had offered them in the past, and because of the fundings and the cuts and whatnot,\u201d she said. \u201cBut yes, this is something that they would appreciate. And I know as a mother of a vet and still in the military, I am appreciative because if he ever has to stay here again, then I know that he\u2019ll be okay. It\u2019s a beautiful, beautiful setting, and I looked at all the rooms, the facility itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Born into a military family and having her son treated at the old facility and brother pass away while in hospice care there as well, she said the new building is a promise kept.<\/p>\n
And for the veterans receiving care like Jimenez, it\u2019s less about the aesthetics and more about how they are made to feel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard for you to say this belongs to me,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is ours. You know, this no longer belongs to you. It belongs to the vets, you know? That\u2019s what I enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONG BEACH, Calif. \u2014 At first glance, one wouldn\u2019t think the Community Living Center is a skilled nursing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[16492,31532,5997,7,1570,31533,131,133,132,5999,136,28190,5996],"class_list":["post-423990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-app-health","tag-app-human-interest","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-california","tag-health","tag-human-interest","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-socal-what-you-need-to-know","tag-top-stories","tag-vania-patino","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}