A wheelchair can help someone move around the house. A ramp can help someone get out of it.
For Dr. Jesus Roberto Duran, those relatively simple needs illustrate a much larger challenge facing older adults in Southern New Mexico. It’s why he helped create Serving Seniors.
Duran has spent years caring for older adults and has seen how quickly independence can disappear. Sometimes the problem is medical. Just as often, he said, it is something health care alone cannot fix: transportation, equipment, help around the house, or simply a safe way to get through the front door.
“We have people that we have done ramps that they haven’t been getting out of the house,” Duran said.
Serving Seniors was founded in 2023 to help fill some of those gaps, providing assistance for needs ranging from wheelchairs and beds to transportation and accessibility ramps. It also provides funding to other organizations serving older adults throughout the region.
The idea grew from Duran’s work as a physician specializing in the care of older adults. He came to Las Cruces in 2008 after studying internal medicine and geriatrics and established Southwest Center on Aging in 2010. What he learned through that work was that caring for an aging patient often extends well beyond what happens in an examination room.
“The reality is that sometimes people come to me and I feel that they’re more about the psychological part, the social part, rather than the medical part,” Duran said. “There’s a lot of social issues in this age, and there’s a lot of need too, for sure.”
Those needs become more pronounced as people lose some of their independence. At first, Duran said, an older adult may need someone to take care of a yard or clean a house. Later, that person may depend on someone else for transportation. Eventually, assistance may be needed with dressing, eating or other basic activities.
Insurance can cover medical treatment, rehabilitation or short-term services after an injury, Duran said, but it often does not address the day-to-day assistance that allows someone to continue living independently.
“Who’s going to help you take care of the house, take care of yourself, take care of your needs, pay your bills?” he said.
The impact reaches beyond the person receiving care. Duran regularly sees adult children and grandchildren rearranging their lives to care for aging family members. They miss work or school, spend their own money and sometimes give up substantial portions of their own retirement years.
“Caregiver stress is a major problem,” he said. “It’s a major issue.”
Duran said he is sometimes amazed by how much family members are willing to sacrifice.
“They’re giving up their retirement time,” he said. “They’re giving up their money, their financials to take care of their parents because it is consuming. It’s very time consuming. It’s very stressful. It is expensive.”
Serving Seniors cannot solve that larger problem, Duran said, but it can address some of the smaller obstacles that make the problem harder.
A walker, wheelchair or bed can make caring for someone easier. A ramp can mean the difference between being confined to a home and being able to leave it.
The organization receives requests through its website, with doctors, case managers and social workers able to apply on behalf of seniors they are assisting. Requests are reviewed to determine whether Serving Seniors can provide help.
The organization also works through groups already providing services to older adults. Duran said funding has gone to programs providing meals and other assistance in communities throughout Southern New Mexico.
The roots of Serving Seniors stretch back before the organization itself. For eight years, Southwest Center on Aging & Friends has held a charity golf tournament, initially directing the proceeds to organizations including the Alzheimer’s Association and Casa de Peregrinos.
But Duran wanted a way to respond more directly when a senior had a specific unmet need. He approached the Community Foundation of Southern New Mexico about establishing a fund specifically for seniors. The Serving Seniors fund was created through the foundation, giving the organization a home for the money it raises and another avenue for people who want to contribute.
Since then, proceeds from the annual golf tournament have gone toward Serving Seniors and its work. The eighth tournament was held Sept. 18. Duran said the tournament remains the organization’s primary fundraising event, although donations can also be made outside it.
There is no building to maintain or large staff to support through the fund, Duran said. The objective is to put the money collected back into assistance for seniors and organizations serving them. Finding needs to fill has not been difficult.
“There’s no problem for that,” Duran said. “There’s a big need.”
For now, much of Serving Seniors’ work is tangible — a ramp here, a wheelchair there, transportation or another piece of equipment that makes life a little easier. Duran would eventually like it to do more.
If additional resources became available, he said one of his priorities would be creating greater access to case managers or social workers who could sit down with seniors and their families, determine what they need and help them navigate programs that already exist.
Some assistance may be available through a city, the state or another community organization, he said, but seniors and their caregivers often do not know where to find it. Duran envisions someone who could help make those connections.
“Human to human,” he said. “You can sit down with a case manager and say, ‘OK, what needs do I have? What can I help?’”
Until then, Serving Seniors will continue working on the individual needs it can address.
Duran knows a wheelchair or a ramp will not solve the larger challenges that come with an aging population. But sometimes helping someone remain independent begins with something much smaller.
“At least we can help with that walker, with that wheelchair, with that bed or with that ramp,” he said, “just to help a little bit on independence.”
