HEALTH CARE : Inland Home Care Council Honors Abbey Representative

It was a grueling, time-consuming job, but somebody had to do it.

As it turned out, though, Steve Bernstein’s effort to organize a health-care reform panel in Redlands for medical bigwigs in the Inland Empire paid off.

Bernstein, a sales representative with Costa Mesa-based Abbey Home Healthcare Inc., was recently honored by the Inland Home Care Council for almost single-handedly organizing the Nov. 3 round-table event.

“When they told me, I was pretty much surprised,” said Bernstein from Abbey’s Redlands office, where 15 Abbey workers provide home medical equipment to about 1,000 patients. “It is nice. I had done a lot of work, but I never expected that.”

The award was presented to Bernstein Dec. 2 at the fifth annual Home Health Councils of Southern California awards luncheon for “outstanding community service and dedication.”

Bernstein’s dedication to organizing the Redlands round-table included hounding three legislators’ offices to ensure a high-profile panel, including Assemblyman Ted Weggeland (R-Riverside) and legislative aides for State Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside) and U.S. Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Colton).

“A lot of legislators are interested in talking about health care with constituents,” said Bernstein, 29. “We put a lot of effort into a local seminar and wanted as many people with as many perspectives as we could. I guess they (the Inland Home Care Council) liked that.”