PHILADELPHIA — The founder of a Philadelphia-based health care company is going the extra mile to hire caregivers from diverse cultural backgrounds who can communicate with clients in their native languages. There's nothing quite like a home-cooked meal, and caregiver Uknary Rennie recently cooked up something special for her 84-year-old client, Phun Ing — a traditional Cambodian seafood soup with shrimp, vegetables and rice.
Heng, a Cambodian immigrant, founded the company in South Philly five years ago after struggling to find the right caregiver for his aging father.'They didn't know the ethnicity and the type of food that we eat. So that was what inspired me to create Century Home Care,' Heng said.His father actually became his first client.Heng's company now serves more than 300 senior citizens from the Cambodian, Burmese, Laotian, Vietnamese and Chinese communities.