Minnesota SNF Closes Doors; Nursing Home Developer Eyes Former Retail Site

Walker Rehab Healthcare Center in Minnesota to Close

The board of directors of the Walker Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center in Walker, Minn., will close the skilled nursing facility, The Pilot-Independent reported. The SNF used to be known as Woodrest-Golden Living.

The average daily occupancy of the care center has declined in recent years, leading to the decision to close the center, the publication reported.

The SNF is working with the Minnesota Department of Health on the closure process, and with representatives of other government agencies on relocation plans for the facility’s 23 residents. Management will also work to arrange new employment opportunities for staffers at other nearby facilities.

Nursing Home Affiliate Levels Former Clothing Store in Pennsylvania

A former luxury men’s clothing story in Dunmore, Penn., was leveled on Nov. 13, by a company affiliated with a private nursing home developer, The Citizens’ Voice reported.

Kelco Properties Inc., which lists Senior Health Care Solutions chief executive Michael Kelly as its president, purchased the building on July 18 for $175,000, the publication reported, citing public records.

The company now owns three consecutive plots on East Drinker Street in Dunmore. Kelly told The Citizens’ Voice that he was not ready to speak publicly on the project and declined to comment.

Senior Health Care Solutions had owned Dunmore Health Care Center — also located in the town — before selling it to Saber Healthcare Group in 2007. Saber, which is based in Cleveland, bought seven Senior Health Care nursing and personal care homes in Lackawanna and Luzerne counties in 2014.

Issue-Plagued Missouri SNF to Close

The Christian Care Home in Ferguson, Mo., will soon be closed, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported November 21.

The facility doesn’t have enough census to remain open while still covering its ongoing costs, people who attended a meeting to discuss its future told the Post-Dispatch, with a target final closing date sometime in January.

Attendees at the meeting were told they had 30 to 60 days to move their relatives, and representatives from other nursing homes in the St. Louis area were available to discuss options with families.

Christian Care Home was allegedly the site of a rape, according to a lawsuit filed earlier this year, and it was previously flagged for failure to report and investigate abuse of residents, as well as failure to hire only people with no legal history of abuse. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) fined the home $78,000 after state investigators found a nurse slapped a resident with dementia, and the facility was also the site of a strike that started in December 2017 and lasted through March.

Written by Maggie Flynn