Another skilled nursing home in Maine is closing down, this time in the Washington County town of Milbridge.
Residents and their families were told Monday that North Country Associates, the Lewiston-based company that operates Narraguagus Bay Health Care Facility, plans to shut it down in 60 days.
“I’m here to make the sad announcement that this facility is going to be closing,” Mary Jane Richards, CEO of North Country, told residents and relatives at a meeting on Monday. An audio recording of Richards announcing the closure in person at Narraguagus Bay was provided Tuesday to the Bangor Daily News.
“The federal requirement is 60 days [notice], so July 22 would be the last day,” Richards said in the recording, which is less than two minutes long.
Over the past three decades, more than 50 nursing homes in Maine — nearly 40 percent — have closed, forcing residents and their families to search for other places to get round-the-clock care. The pace has accelerated in the past decade, with nearly two dozen shutting down, including nine in the past four years.
Health care officials have said the closures are primarily driven by reimbursement rates that have not kept up with the costs of delivering services, and that have also made it harder to retain staff.
Several of the former nursing homes have been converted to assisted living facilities, which offer fewer medical services to residents. People living at nursing homes typically need more regular care than assisted living centers are allowed to provide.
Richards said staff at the Milbridge nursing home will try to help residents and their families find other facilities that they can move to.
“People need to take placement as quickly as you can,” she said in the recording. “There’s a lot of facilities that are closed in the area, so it’s going to be more challenging to find a good location.”
North Country Associates, which according to its website owns or operates 16 nursing homes in Maine, has closed multiple locations in the past five years. Among them are Courtland Rehabilitation and Living Center in Ellsworth, Sonogee Rehabilitation and Living Center in Bar Harbor, and Heritage Rehabilitation and Living Center in Winthrop.
Richards did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday afternoon.
Brenda Gallant, the state ombudsman for long-term care, also did not respond.
Narraguagus Bay has faced other challenges in recent years.
In 2022, the rubber membrane on its roof was ripped off during a January windstorm, forcing residents to temporarily relocate until it could be fixed.
In the three years prior to the roof incident, the facility had to address other shortcomings and deficiencies that included insufficient building maintenance, but it remedied those issues after they were flagged by state inspectors, officials said in 2022.
Joshua Jones, a Penobscot resident, said that his wife’s father has been living at Narraguagus Bay since January, when he had to leave Seaport Village in Ellsworth. That nursing home also closed and was converted into an assisted living facility, prompting them to scramble to find a new place that would take in his father-in-law.
Credit: Courtesy of Samantha and Joshua Jones
That closure left Hancock County without any nursing homes.
Jones expressed dismay at having to find a new nursing home, but said he and his wife have been dealing with elder-care concerns for his in-laws since the COVID pandemic spread to Maine in the spring of 2020.
“It’s just being in reaction mode of ‘what’s next?’” Jones said. “It’s baffling. It’s heartbreaking. It shows something serious is going on.”
