John Hoffman December 4th Speaker

On December 4th John Hoffman spoke about the County Nursing Home.

Issues:

The current facility is 40 years old and will be very expensive to fix and maintain.; The estimated cost is between 18 and 22 million dollars to bring the current building up to standard.

The County is required by State Law to provide a Nursing Home facility or to pay a private organization to to care for the needy elderly.

It takes 1 hour to get a patient from Westmoreland to the hospital in Keene.

Patients are lonely, board and feel helpless in the current facility.

Greenhouse proposal:

Would provide a homelike setting with private rooms and kitchens in common areas. Not the hospital type of setting that was the old model.

The cost of running the Greenhouse model is about $200,000 less than the current facility.

The cost of building the Greenhouse would be between $18,000,000 and $22,000,000. A new facility for the cost of fixing the old one.

The current site would possibly be used as a rehab facility for the VA.

The Greenhouse is less expensive to run than the hospital model.