CALAIS, Maine — A decision by Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services to authorize closure of the 50-bed Atlantic Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Calais is being revisited, offering residents, their families and the facility’s staff new hope that relocation and loss of jobs can be avoided.
This morning DHHS Commissioner Mary Mayhew told Maine State President Kevin Raye, a Washington County Republican who remains immersed in efforts to keep Calais’ only nursing home up and running, that a public hearing would be held on the matter, most likely within the next 30 days.
“It’s been my position and that of others affected by this that loss of a nursing home in Calais is not acceptable,” Raye told the Bangor Daily News Tuesday after speaking with Mayhew by phone. “Throughout this process we’ve been looking at all the options. Now it appears there may be [U.S. Department of Agriculture] Rural Development loan money that could help pave the way for a replacement facility.”
With the help of such a grant, Raye said, a new nursing home could be built on property adjacent to the existing Washington Place assisted living center in Calais, allowing the two facilities to be physically attached.
Mayhew’s decision to reconsider plans by Portland-based First Atlantic Healthcare to close the 39-year-old facility comes in the wake of a letter of appeal she received in February for Calais Mayor Joseph Cassidy. In that letter Cassidy notes that, should the Calais nursing home be closed, there are very few other nursing home options in Washington County.
Closing the facility would also put 92 health care workers and support staff out of work.
Among the options now under consideration is the City of Calais buying the facility from First Atlantic. That approach was suggested in a Feb. 6 letter sent to the city from First Atlantic CEO Kenneth Bowden, who said his firm is losing $81,000 a month in keeping the nursing home open, a fiscal reality that he termed “unacceptable.”
Bowden says in his letter that a publicly owned facility would qualify for higher MaineCare reimbursement rates for services provided to residents than are now being paid to First Atlantic.
Calais City Manager Diane Barnes has said no decision on Bowden’s proposal has been made, as those involved were awaiting Mayhew’s reaction to Cassid-y’s letter of appeal.
The lapudge administration, hard at work creating jobs…but where are the jobs?
In the Dept. of Labor processing unemployment claims. :)
The Business that ran this facility decided it wasn’t feasible. What’s the matter Mr. Speaker its OK for a business to make a decision to close something except in your Senate District? What ever happened to less regulation by this administration.
If they want to stop taking public money, then they can do what they want.
Money should never be an issue especially when it comes to taking care of the elderly. Yes, this business is definately known to everyone. Not sure if you realize this or not but this company kept the closure of this facility in secret for over a year. A good business would of let the city know of this plan especially when it has to do with peoples lives.
You’re a poster child for the kind of political cruelty that dooms a country to death by greed.
You have me all wrong. I worked for DHHS for 28 years until I was forced to retire due to a change in health insurance benefits. That forced retirement ultimately cost me 42 percent penalty in my retirement. 30 year promises meant nothing to these Tea party radicals that took control in 2010. Cut the pensions of teachers and long time State Employees claiming you could no longer afford to pay them anymore while at the same time giving tax breaks to individuals that mostly benefited the rich and estates up to 2 million dollars. I worked for the Certificate of Need Program that reviewed this application although I was not the analyst for this particular project. If it wasn’t for recent changes that gutted this program a public hearing would have been held. These changes were done with the Republicans in majority forcing these changes which Sen Raye voted for. Now its not fair because it happened in his district. Too bad Senator be careful what regulations you voted to gut.
The greed in this case was by Senator Raye and his party in cutting regulations that would have made this a fairer process so all affected persons would have been notified.
since you are knowledgeable of the system, how about the owners who used to get paid 10% return on equity for leaving profits in the business to save the state money and then they cut the rate down to nothing and now the owner gets 0% for leaving cash flow in the business.
how about the owner who took a chance and built one of these places where there was none and was hoping to sell it to family or anyone for that matter for a profit at retirement age and then the state and feds change the rules and now you have to sell it for what you paid for it because if you sell for a profit like any business would be allowed, you will have to charge your customers more and if your customers are 95% maine care or the taxpayers, and the liberals have made it more and more easy for anyone to get on mainecare, so the government is out of money to pay for these residents so the government says you have to sell the place at cost to prohibit any sales. and you are complaining that you lost some of your porky pension plan, how about the the old people that are now forced to keep the ownership of these nursing homes and can not retire?? you got it made at our expense.
I don’t know all the rules on Nursing Homes as I never reviewed them. I reviewed just Hospitals. Trust me my pension isn’t porky. If I had known 28 years ago that the State wouldn’t keep their promises I never would have worked for them. If you think $1200/month is porky I can’t help you. I would have gotten a better retirement working for Social Security all these years. My pension was also contributed by me at 65 % while the State has only contributed 35 %. You as a tax payer got out of it cheap a lot cheaper than if they were made to pay into Social Security. You just don’t get it. Your one of them that wants all the services but don’t want to pay for them.
Disqus generic email templateno I pay for ALL my retirement by myself and pay for 50% of 28 employees as well so I don’t expect anything for free. I don’t get paid vacations and up teen paid holidays. I work on those holidays so my staff can get them off paid my ME! I also take chances by borrowing money annually to improve my business so I can employ more people.
Since First Atlantic bought this nursing home they haven’t put anything but cosmetic paint into the upkeep of the building. It was poorly designed for this climate with a flat roof and therefore has continuing roof leakage problems.
First Atlantic has been quoted that they are losing money running this facility. I believe that they have brought that on themselves by refusing new admitances and scaring families into taking their relatives out of there and placing them in vacancies in other facilities. The combination has resulted in the loss of close to 20 occupancies out of 52 available beds. That was never the case until the owners decided to close the facility. They may be bleeding but that is from self inflicted wounds.
So you would like less regulations of nursing homes? I think you have no idea what the situation would be without regulations in nursing homes. Maybe someday you will get to find out what a non regulated nursing home would be like, first hand.
“It’s nursing homes, and the mentally ill. I’ll have to shut it down,” LePage said. 12/28/2011
“a publicly owned facility would qualify for higher MaineCare reimbursement rates”
How do Senator Raye and Commissioner Mayhew reconcile spending more DHHS money, rather than less, to keep the home operating in Calais? Is Raye a NIMBY fiscal conservative?
Regardless the point is this area needs a nursing home….and I really don’t care how they figure this all out as long as the elderly are cared for and able to stay in their own community with their loved ones. After all most of them worked all their lives and at their age they deserve the best. I would hope that someday when I am elderly that there will be a place for me close to my family. There should always be money for the elderly enough said.
I hear you, point well taken, But this Home is here to make money. That is their prime objective. The needs of the elderly are only a means to an end. This reflects the reality of Business. “Open for business” has a down side, it’s not the universal panacea for social problems that some would have it.
I think a non-profit would be best for that area. I understand they are there to make money…its a business “privately owned” but I don’t think it was fair to keep it a secret for a year and not let the city know about it.
I agree it wasn’t fair. Business is nothing about fair, its what works, what you can get away with, who you can influence. A ledger of profit and loss is the sum total of all earthly beatitudes and abominations. Capitalism is many things to many people but none would say its about fair.
It takes money to make money. This company seems able to come up with the money to build a brand new facility in Ellsworth. Yet they haven’t been able to maintaint the building they already have in Calais. If they are losing money, it’s because they have cut off their nose in spite of their face.
if you would know how the reimbursment system works you would understand why they are doing this. unfortunately, you are only allowed to make a profit on the people that pay their own way or “private pay customers” these rules are the states and feds rules that have been in effect since the 60’s. the state has allowed more and more people to get on maine care or welfare, and so if you are going to make a profit in this business, you need to have a nice place that is modern and warm. like any old buildings, they outgrow their lives and it is time to replace the building and since the state has not allowed any new beds to be built w/o other beds being closed, due to increasing the mainecare budget, that is what the people that own these places have to do. my guess is that there are more private pay customers in the ellsworth area so they are building in that area.
it would be like building an L.L. Bean outlet in the middle of nowhere? would you make any money or would you build it where there are lots of shoppers with money. very simple.
Business is business.When insurance companies let people die because they didn’t want to pay for a treatment or operation it wasn’t just TS it was business. These guys will excise what they consider non performing operations and sleep like babies. Its business.
What about these core Republican principles that we’ve been hearing about – how government should stay out of the private sector? Now all of the sudden Maine’s big Republican voice is crying for a government handout?
How did they keep it a secret? It’s my understanding they went to DHHS to close the facility and consolidate patients in Ellsworth and it was approved with a letter from the Commissioner so how was this a secret? It was public knowledge just not apparently to the people of Calais?
It was not told to the City of Calais. It some how got on the internet where it was found but alittle too late. They kept it a secret!
Anyway’s sounds like your not all for the elderly having a home in their own community. I’m not here to argue but I do hope that some how they can keep a nursing home for these people and their families.
Nor to the employees or families of the residents.
NONE of the company’s fillings or public advertisings mentioned anything about closing the Calais facility.
Under the old CON Laws the applicant would have been required to notify and have a public informational meeting. Sen Raye voted to change that law last year. Now its biting him in the behind because the applicant did not have to give notice in this case.
They were not required to by the new law Sen. Raye voted for which changed under his leadership. Before him and LePage changed the law they were required to.
It was public that “First Atlantic” sent a request to the state, not “Atlantic Rehab”. They never notified the city about this, so did not give the city an option to try and work on this up until this time. So don’t point your finger at Calais, as I would think that both DHHS and First Atlantic should have been required to reach out to the city for their input…
The hearings were advertised in Kennebec County papers. No one here knew anything about it. We have a small weekly local paper and the Bangor Daily News, nothing was in any paper anyone here reads. Were we supposed to know they were posting this 300 miles away? Hearings were held in Ellsworth, two hours away. Don’t try to tell us this wasn’t sneaky and underhanded.
The law requires that it be posted in the KJ as the official State Paper and the local daily newspaper of the area affected which I would assume was the Bangor Daily News. If it wasn’t than the process was illegal. The CON Unit would have a receipt if it was published in the areas local daily newspaper. Just call and request they provide what newspapers they were published in. It has to be published in two papers unless the affected area is in Augusta area than only the KJ would have to publish it.
Is the facility in Calais in need of repair or renovations if it were to remain open? Can it be used as is or expanded? The company originally asked to close it and has plans to build a $9 million facility in Ellsworth….now the fine Senator from Eastport is talking about Federal grant monies to build a new facility adjacent to the existing facility and for both to be utilized…..it seems geographically that closing this facility would be a disaster for patients and family in and around Calais…….seems like the issues maybe should have been discussed a little more in depth prior to now or at least prior to already made decisions…..IMHO……
Yes the facility is in need of major repairs. That is why it would of been nice if the City Of Calais would of known a year ago about this then they could of had time to figure this all out. I totally agree the issues should of been discussed prior to already made decisions.
Thank you……
At last a step in the right direction. Keep these people in your prayers. Thanks
If they are there to make money, why did they put a moratorium on new patients when they had beds to fill? No, making money is the red herring. Also, they are proposing building a new facility in Ellsworth at a cost of millions to replace the Calais facility. Where is the logic in that? Unfortunately, that little tid bit is not included in this “report.” Several other details are missing as well. Like the new patient moratorium. Of course they are losing money. They are not operating at capacity and they have not properly maintained the building. It ‘s called letting it die on the vine and it’s an unfortunate business practice in this day and age. All to get a brand spanking new facility in this company’s inventory at a major expense to taxpayers. The new definition of “job creators” sure has me stumped!
The elderly will be living in a cardboard box soon the Lepage and company are going see to that.. Just remember that the elderly supported this state and kept it running when Lepage was wearing diaper rash and a bottle in hand. So back off the elderly they have payed there dues.
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Bowden says in his letter that a publicly owned facility would qualify for higher MaineCare reimbursement rates for services provided to residents than are now being paid to First Atlantic.”
Interesting that DHHS will pay more money to an outfit that does not pay property taxes or sales taxes on everything it buys.
And Bowden claims to be losing $81000/month in Calais, but wants to pop for $9-million to build a new facility in Ellsworth — to lose more money ?????
Something smells here.
How’s that “smaller federal government”, “keep government out of business”, “capitalism over socialism” thing working out for you now, Mr. Raye?