DEER ISLE, Maine — Island Nursing Home will not reopen as a residential care facility.
A spokesperson for the facility made the announcement in a press release Friday, saying "a lack of reliable funding and staff created an impossible scenario for reopening."
The decision was made collectively by the home's board of directors after several months of exploring possible opportunities to reopen what was once a home for skilled nursing care and residential care, the release stated.
The board of directors is now in the process of assessing other options for the building. They intend to have a public meeting in the coming weeks to share more information and to get input from the community, according to the release.
“It pains us to come to this conclusion, but we have turned over every possible stone, and it’s apparent that residential care is not an option for this facility,” Leon Weed, president of the home's board of directors, said in the release. “We knew very early on that skilled nursing would not be possible due to staffing shortages, but the community demanded that we continue exploring options. We did that. Funding shortfalls due to low reimbursement rates by the state presented a challenge, and even though we would not have needed as large of a staff, we could not guarantee that we would even be able to meet the minimum employment requirements for a residential care facility."
The facility originally closed in October 2021 due to staffing challenges. While the opportunity to reopen as a skilled nursing facility was explored, ultimately it was decided that there was not adequate staff to make that a reality.
Due to state reimbursement rates not matching the cost of keeping a facility open, the board of directors aimed to fundraise $1.5 million. That amount of money, the board said, would cover three years worth of funding shortfalls with MaineCare reimbursements and allow the board to plan for the future. Despite fundraising efforts, only about $500,000 in donations and pledges were collected, according to the release. Even if enough money had been raised, there was no guarantee the home would have sufficient staff to meet basic requirements to operate such a facility, the release stated.
“It was a bit of a perfect storm, which created an imperfect reality,” Weed said. “If it had just been the fundraising or just coming up short on staff, we might have been able to overcome one or the other with creative solutions. But because it was both funding and staffing, it was awfully difficult to promise jobs to potential employees when the funding was in doubt, and vice versa.”