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Over Two Dozen Hospitals Join Who Will Care? Campaign, Urges Legislators to Save Maine’s Long Term Care Facilities from Further Closures
- By: Ben Hawkins
- On: 03/21/2024 16:32:03
- In: Legislative/Government Affairs
Representatives of MaineHealth, Northern Light Blue Hill and Maine Coast Hospitals, Maine Hospital Association, Long Term Care Ombudsman, and Maine Health Care Association, all shared perspectives on the challenges of providing adequate care in a health care system with a rapidly diminishing number of long term care facilities and the urgent need for increased funding from the Legislature.
“Older adult patients hospitalized in Ellsworth and Blue Hill often need post-acute rehabilitation or skilled nursing home care to successfully recover and before returning home. With the recent closure of several local nursing home facilities, patients are having to travel far from home for care,” shares Vice President Nursing and Patient Care Services Kristin Cyr, MSN, MBA, CHC, CHPC, Northern Light Blue Hill and Maine Coast Hospitals. “The lack of available beds leads to longer hospital stays as well as added travel burden placed on aging family members wishing to visit.”
“The time for action by Maine's lawmakers to support a long-term solution is overdue. Too many patients are languishing in hospitals throughout Maine, waiting for a bed in a long term care facility – and waiting for hospital beds that should otherwise be accessible. Care is delayed and outcomes can be impacted,” said Dr. Daniel Meyer, MD, practicing hospitalist and Director of Hospital Medicine at Maine Medical Center. “A wise person once stated, ‘a society can be judged based on the way it treats its most vulnerable people.' With that as a standard, Maine is failing. We must do better. I ask the Legislature to support additional funding for Maine's nursing homes to improve access for our vulnerable older Mainers.”
“The latest count is that there are 200 patients in hospitals waiting for a long term care placement. This compromises our ability to care for other patients' medical needs,” Jeff Austin of the Maine Hospital Association, which represents 36 hospitals statewide, shared. “Furthermore, hospitals are not the right setting for our older adults to be living in when their needs would be best met in a long term care center.”
“Residents deserve to have friends and family just a close drive away, fostering a sense of community and connection that is integral to their well-being. However, the reality is that many rural regions of Maine have only one or two nursing homes within an hour's drive, making the closure of these facilities all the more unfortunate,” said Nicole Marchesi, project manager in the Maine Long-Term Care Ombudsman's office. “As Maine loses nursing home beds across the state, especially in rural areas, it has become increasingly more difficult to find a new home, especially one that is close enough for loved ones to regularly visit.”
“We are only three months into the year, and three nursing homes have already announced their closure,” said Ben Hawkins, Director of Public Affairs for the Maine Health Care Association. “Since 2020, our state has lost 11 skilled nursing facilities. As today's speakers made clear, each of these losses ripples across the community, hinders our entire healthcare system, and disrupts residents' sense of security in their homes.”
Since 2014, there have been approximately 50 nursing home and residential care facility closures or conversions to lower levels of care in Maine. Of those closures and conversions, 25 have been nursing home closures, 11 of which occurred since 2020. This escalating rate of closures is happening because of low reimbursement rates coupled with record inflation levels and exploding labor costs due to too qualified direct care workers. The only solution to this problem is to increase MaineCare reimbursement rates to meet today's price of providing care to Maine people.
Who Will Care? campaign coalition members include the Alzheimer's Association, Northern Light Health, Maine Hospital Association, Maine Health Care Association, Leading Age Maine, Maine Medical Association, the Maine Council on Aging, MaineHealth, Maine Osteopathic Association, the Maine Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, and Maine Public Health Association. The coalition was formed with the intent of advocating for public awareness on the issue of long term care closures and increased funding for long term facilities from the State of Maine.
Staff contact: bhawkins@mehca.org