More news about federal funds being channeled into more appropriate needs.

South Carolina is one of 17 states getting part of a $1.75 billion federal grant designed to assist nursing-home residents in moving back to their own houses or to other more suitable places within their communities.

Nationally, the awards could help about 23,000 nursing-home patients move over five years.

The Palmetto State, where more than 80,000 mostly elderly residents live in nursing homes, got the smallest grant of states receiving money. Twenty-one states that applied got no money.

The state will get $5.8 million between now and 2011. The money is designed to move 192 individuals out of institutions to settings such as group homes or back with family.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which applied for the grant, said it asked for funds to cover the number of patients it felt it realistically could move.

A review committee is being formed to set up rules on state resident participation in the program.

The state limited its application to cover only elderly and disabled adults under the grant, a department spokesman said.

Texas got the most money, with nearly $143 million set to be given over five years.

States receiving the grants are required to eliminate barriers to long-term care in the settings Medicaid patients choose and assure that care can be sustained and quality maintained.

The grants were awarded under a “money follows the person” Medicaid program, in which patients are given greater control over how money is spent for their treatment.

Medicaid officials say it saves money and that patients are more satisfied when they have greater roles in determining their care.

Although this is a small amount of money, really, it’s a start. MANY nursing home residents could be moved back into their homes, or into smaller group homes and the like. The savings would be astronomical and the residents, those human beings who deserve so much better, would be MUCH HAPPIER and more than likely better cared for.