Save The Life Care Center
Posted September 21, 2017 at 5:55 am by Tim Dustrude
The Life Care Center of San Juan Island at 660 Spring Street – SJ Update photo
Dear Community Members,
One of San Juan County’s few nursing homes needs our help!
Urgent Community Issue:
As many of you have already heard, The Life Care Center corporation has announced that they will be closing The Life Care Center of the San Juans on November 15, two months from now. What can residents, family members, and employees expect, and what can we do to make sure that our friends and loved ones can continue to be cared for and reside near their homes?
Take Action:
Next Monday there will be a community meeting regarding this issue, and all are welcome and encouraged to attend and spread the word! Grisha Krivchenia has agreed to be the facilitator for this first meeting.
Monday Sept 25th
5:30 pm Mullis Center
Community Meeting: Save The Life Care Center of the San Juans!
We must protect this valuable resource for the elderly, ill and disabled in our community! Please spread the word and put on your thinking caps. This is a truly urgent issue!
More in-depth info on Life Care Center closing proposal:The Life Care Center corporation has announced that they will be closing The Life Care Center of the San Juans on November 15, two months from now. There are 35 residents who will need to find another place to live. Some may be able to be taken care of by relatives, with modifications made to their homes. Most will have to find care off-island. The few who “privately pay” for their care may be able to find another place on the island, but most of the residents are on Medicaid and will be unable to find another place to live here. Medicaid does not pay enough to cover the costs of care. The Life Care Center corporation has been losing money on our island’s facility, and has decided they have to close it.
It is a vicious circle. They can’t accept more residents unless they can hire more caregivers, CNAs especially. CNAs don’t really get a living wage for the cost of living here on the island, so they go to work at the hospital or other facilities that can pay more. Without the CNAs, they can’t admit enough residents in the facility to support costs. Too few residents means not enough money to pay the staff.
There are sixty employees who will lose their jobs in two months. That’s catastrophic. The Center employs nurses, social workers, physical therapists, dieticians, housekeeping staff, maintenance staff and administrative personnel in addition to CNAs.
With the loss of this Center, where will our soon-to-be-old “baby boomers” get needed care? This isn’t just long term care, but also rehabilitation for post-surgery and the like.
This is a generous community. If we can gather in thousands to march on Spring Street, purchase a Brickworks, fund an animal care center, purchase Mount Grant… etc., surely we can fund-raise somehow to endow a nursing home so that living wages can be paid and they can make ends meet on a mostly Medicaid supported census! The work is hard but rewarding. It just needs to be compensated fairly.
We’re putting out a call to everyone we can think of, to see if we can think outside the box, or inside the box… please join us on Monday!
Peace,
SJI Women’s Group
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Categories: Community, Health & Wellness
4 comments:
4 comments...
As a family member of a current resident affected by the closing of Life Care I encourage everyone to come out and support, give ideas etc to try to save our nursing home. It’s too late for my mother as we are relocating her to Idaho so that I can tend to her needs but I hope that in the near future and future generations something positive will happen and the center can re-open. Kindly, Jeanne Wilkinson Newell
So there is a very big need for this vital Care facility to continue; being wheelchair bound; I am keenly aware of the need. What if there could be an investment made by marijuana sales, since banks won’t take their money?
It cost my mother in law 9200 dollars per month to be there. please explain that cost.
Dear Ken, I do not have the answer to your question. May I suggest that the meeting on Monday may be a good time and place to voice your concerns.
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