Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 28, 1995 TAG: 9507280091
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"I am furious with them," said Gay Ellis of Montvale, whose mother lived in the Coyner Springs home for three years until her death this week. "Those residents are getting short-changed.
"It's a big family there. It's caring workers. It's not just a profession to them. ... You don't get that at a for-profit nursing home," she said.
City officials on Thursday announced a tentative agreement under which the 58 patients at the money-losing nursing home would be moved sometime during the next two years to a new facility built by Roanoke-based Smith/Packett Medcom Inc.
The plan requires approval of City Council, which will take up the proposal at a special meeting Monday.
Smith/Packett operates more than 20 nursing homes in five states, with a total of more than 2,000 beds. Its offer was the top ranked of nine nursing home operators', city officials said at a new conference to announce the deal.
Company officials were unavailable for comment Thursday.
City Manager Bob Herbert suggested in March that council consider getting out of the nursing home business, because the 46-employee facility is losing more than $400,000 annually and losses would continue to escalate.
The aging, one-story brick building sits on 140 city-owned acres in Botetourt County. The site also houses a juvenile detention home and a youth crisis intervention center.
The city is expected to operate the nursing home for about two more years while Smith/Packett obtains a certificate of need from the state and builds a new facility, said Assistant City Manager Jim Ritchie. The city will retain control of the old building and the property it sits on.
The agreement is contingent on the company's obtaining a certificate of need, on which the state currently has a moratorium.
Under terms of the agreement negotiated with Smith/Packett:
The company would pay the city $455,000 in cash and assume payments for leave owed to employees who transfer to the company when it takes over.
All patients at the home - most of whose care is subsidized by Medicaid or Medicare - will be accepted into Smith/Packett's new home. But the agreement also requires that the company accept federally subsidized patients for the first five years of the new home's operation. It is conceivable that the new nursing home could turn away federally subsidized patients after 2002.
The city would pay bonuses ranging from one month's to six months' pay to current workers who stay at the nursing home until Smith/Packett takes over. The bonuses could total $344,000 if all current employees stay on, Finance Director Jim Grisso said.
Smith/Packett has agreed to hire all the current workers, but it has promised to maintain their current wage-benefit package for only a year after taking over. Grisso said the higher salaries employees are earning is the principal reason the home is losing money.
"I believe this agreement represents a cost-saving to the taxpayers of Roanoke," Ritchie said. "But most importantly, the nursing home residents will have the opportunity to move to a new nursing home, a state-of-the-art facility with amenities and services they deserve."
"They say it won't affect the quality of care, but that is nothing but an absolute lie," Ellis said. She was at the home shortly after the city announced it was considering selling it back in March.
"One little old lady started crying and said, 'I hope I die before I have to move.' Another man - he's been there about 20 years - they had to put him to bed because he got sick at the news," Ellis said.
"Care of elderly citizens should not be a profit-making business," she said.
Judy Brunk, whose mother-in-law, Thelma Wright, lives in the nursing home, also objects to the sale. The current employees will leave after their pay is cut, and Smith/Packett "is going to get other people who will work for less," she said.
Wright is incontinent and bedridden, yet the employees at the nursing home now get her out of bed every day, Brunk said. "I'm just scared that [under Smith/Packett] they're gonna leave her in bed and she won't get good care."
"It's going to be hard on elderly patients, to make them move and adjust to another place," said Ginny Connor, whose mother-in-law, Annie Connor, also lives there.
Proposals to sell the nursing home last came before council in 1983, when the facility was showing a deficit of about $250,000 annually.
One company offered more than $1 million for the facility, and three others sought to manage it under contract.
But then-City Manager Bern Ewert sided with keeping the money-losing home. And City Council members agreed, calling it a symbol of Roanoke's concern for disadvantaged elderly residents.
"There is no way I would vote to close that facility. It provides a good image for the city. It shows we are concerned about more than just bricks and mortar," then-Councilman Wendell Butler said.
In May, Smith/Packett made an unsolicited bid for a public nursing home owned by Bedford County. But the county Board of Supervisors rejected the offer.
Neither James Smith nor other company officials were available for comment Thursday, according to a receptionist at the company's Roanoke headquarters.
Smith told Bedford supervisors in May that the company can offer quality care, yet turn a profit at money-losing public homes, because it operates many nursing homes and can save money by purchasing medical supplies and other essentials in bulk.
by CNB