Central Aroostook County lost one of its three nursing homes Thursday when the last resident left and the Presque Isle Rehab and Nursing Center closed for good.
Owners the Cyr family, who also own the Caribou Nursing and Rehab Center, announced in March the Presque Isle location would close, affecting 49 residents and 120 staff.
It’s the latest in a string of Maine nursing home shutdowns, due mostly to staff shortages and lack of enough state funding to keep going. The Presque Isle nursing home served central Aroostook for 48 years. Its closure leaves another elder-care hole in Maine, where 22 percent of the population is 65 and older.
“COVID knocked the wind out of every nursing home operation across the U.S.,” said Phil Cyr, Cyr family president. “That’s what we’re all trying to climb out of and get back on solid ground.”
In the last decade, Maine has lost about 25 long-term care facilities. Narraguagus Bay Health Care Facility was one of the most recent to announce its closure. Others have shut down in Deer Isle and Ellsworth, and sites in Houlton and Belfast downsized.
In part it’s because many long-term care residents are covered by MaineCare, and what the state will pay for their care falls short of what nursing homes need to operate. Industry leaders say more funding is necessary to stop the closures.
The Department of Health and Human Services is considering MaineCare rate reform in the 2025 fiscal year for nursing facilities, which includes increasing staff levels, reducing more expensive temporary workers, and providing more employee incentives.
Cyr, who’s been in the nursing home business for 45 years, is on the Maine Health Care Association‘s committee to review the proposed funding reform.
“We want DHHS to guarantee that nobody’s payment actually goes down as a result of the new system — it actually stays the same or they get more — and they haven’t really committed to that yet, to my knowledge,” he said.
The Presque Isle building is up for sale. An appraiser suggested its best use would be as an assisted living facility or medical office building, Cyr said. Subsidized housing for older people is another possibility.
Presque Isle Rehab and Nursing’s final resident transferred to a Madawaska facility Thursday, he said. While some went to care centers elsewhere in Aroostook or southern Maine, two-thirds of them transferred to Caribou.
Terry Sandusky of Mapleton is the regional representative for the Maine Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, a nonprofit organization based in Augusta that advocates for care and quality of life for residents in nursing homes, assisted living, home care and hospice.
Sandusky has seen 44 residents off as they leave the Presque Isle center. While 30 went to the Caribou facility, the others are between Mars Hill and Madawaska, he said. Most residents are satisfied, though some family members have to travel farther to see them.
“Because so many residents have moved to the Caribou Nursing Home, they have been placed in rooms near each other,” Sandusky said. “Some residents who were roommates in Presque Isle are roommates in Caribou.”
Some familiar staff have also transferred, he said.
Aroostook County’s other nursing homes include High View Rehab and Nursing Center in Madawaska, Madigan Estates in Houlton, the Maine Veterans Home in Caribou, Borderview in Van Buren, Mercy Home in Eagle Lake, Forest Hill Manor in Fort Kent and High View Manor in Madawaska.
The closure intensifies the dilemma of ensuring enough beds for those who need them.
“There is a significant need in The County for nursing home beds for elderly, frail individuals who need more care than a home situation can provide,” said Tammy Beaulier-Fuller, RN, vice president of nursing and patient care services at Northern Light A.R. Gould Hospital in Presque Isle.
The hospital operates Northern Light Continuing Care in Mars Hill.
If there is a bright spot, it is that the loss of one nursing home has buoyed up the other two in the area.
Some residents and staff chose to transfer to Mars Hill, Beaulier-Fuller said, including former Presque Isle administrator Mark McKenna, who is the new Mars Hill administrator.
She declined to specify how many residents or staff transferred, but said the health center is working to increase its capacity in the wake of Thursday’s closure.
“Over the last six months, with the hiring of temporary staff, the facility was able to increase its census from 30 to 40 residents,” Beaulier-Fuller said. “As we are able to hire and train more staff over the coming weeks and months, we will be able to increase census at the facility.”
Caribou Rehab is financially stronger, Cyr said. In addition to the 30 or so patients it absorbed from Presque Isle, the 67-bed center has added about 20 employees, including more than a dozen of Presque Isle’s nursing assistants.
There is an expansion on the horizon. Oct. 1 will see the center add five more licensed beds, bringing its capacity to 72.
“We are climbing out of the hole, not as fast as we’d like to, but we are making a comeback,” Cyr said. “And we in central Aroostook are climbing out of the hole largely because Presque Isle was closed.”
