Over Two Dozen Mostly Poor NH Extended Care Center Residents Get 3-Month 'Boot' Notice; Paltry Medicaid Reimbursements, Need For Capital Upgrades In Aging Premises, Money-Losing Operations Cited As Reasons For Nursing Home Closure

In New London, New Hampshire, Valley News reports:

• The Board of Trustees at New London Hospital voted unanimously [] to close the William P. Clough Extended Care Center by Oct. 1, giving hospital officials 3½ months to find alternative arrangements for the 31 residents still living at the nursing home.
  
  The Valley News reported last month that the trustees were expected to act on the issue at Thursday’s meeting, following 18 months of work by a hospital committee assessing the future of the 45-year-old nursing home, which New London Hospital officials said loses $1 million annually.
  
  About 35 staff members employed by the 58-bed facility, which is licensed for both long-term care and skilled nursing, are expected to be impacted by the closing, and hospital officials said they are looking to help them find new jobs, either within the hospital, the affiliated Dartmouth-Hitchcock system, or with private nursing homes that may take some of the residents.
  
  New London Hospital President and CEO Bruce King said the closing of the nursing home follows similar actions taken in recent years by Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital in Lebanon, Mount Ascutney Hospital and Health Center in Windsor, and a hospital in Exeter, N.H.
  
  “Basically, the long-term care reimbursement from the state of New Hampshire for Medicaid patients, which is the vast majority of our patients, does not cover the cost of the care,” King said. “We’ve tried to be transparent that it is not sustainable for an institution to be losing $1 million a year from operations in providing long-term care.”
  
  The Clough Center is embedded into the hospital itself, occupying much of the second level of the four-level hospital building. The nursing home opened in 1971, and hospital officials also have said that besides losing money, the space needs capital upgrades, such as HVAC improvements and new windows.

For more, see Clough Center To Close.