Rural Maine Nursing and Rehab Center Announces Closure

Over the last few years, we have seen several Maine medical facilities close their doors.  In other cases, the hospitals and facilities have stayed open, but have closed certain departments.

Sadly, it is happening again.

According to an article on the WAGM website, the management at Aroostook County's Presque Isle Rehab & Nursing Center have announced plans to close the facility.

At this time, the facility is slated to be completely closed by June 30, 2024.

The article explains that the main reason for the closure is a lack of available nurses.

Phil Cyr, the president of the facility, told WAGM:

We’ve been only able to operate at about 80% capacity and we need at least 90% to break even. And we’ve been below 90% for a while and it actually seems to be getting worse, not better.

In recent years, because of the number of nurses leaving the industry, the center has had to certify between 12 and 16 new nurses each year.  While it was a problem before 2020, the issue got much worse during the pandemic.

There are three nursing homes in that region: Presque Isle, Mars Hill, and Caribou.  It is felt that closing the Presque Isle one will make it easier to staff the locations in Caribou and Mars Hill.

The plan is to relocate the residents of the Presque Isle center to the Caribou location.  Some may end up being moved to Mars Hill.

The Presque Isle facility was chosen to be closed, because it is believed that it will be the easiest location to find a buyer for that building.