The Greene County Medical Center has announced the closure of the Long Term Care Department.

The Board of Trustees made the unanimous decision during its Thursday public meeting to close the facility on September 28th. Before making the choice to close the department, the Board considered many options, but all of them were determined to be cost prohibitive with the age of the facility, as well as the construction costs and acquiring building materials.

Currently, Long Term Care houses 34 residents and CEO Chad Butterfield says the hospital had been losing money for a few years that has significantly affected their operational expenses and closing the facility was in the best interest of the taxpayer. The medical center is working with Accura HealthCare to assist those current residents and their families to find alternate facilities as part of the closure plan for Long Term Care. 

Butterfield addresses the 58 team members that work with Long Term Care.

“They each have been provided a 60 days notice and are being offered a severance package at the end of that 60 day notice. We’ve also encouraged them to take a look at our open positions that the hospital has to see if anything that is currently available is something that they’re interested in to keep them at the medical center.” 

Butterfield shares his thoughts on the closure with the families of the residents as well as the entire community.

“First I want to thank the families for allowing us the opportunity to take care of their loved ones. It’s incredibly unfortunate and not what any of us wanted to be faced with the closure of Long Term Care. Our goal at the medical center has been and will continue to be to always ensure that we’re going to be here in 5, 10, 15, 25 years and we believe that these difficult decisions help us continue to make sure that that happens.”   

Butterfield adds there are no plans for the space that Long Term Care currently has as their top priority is finding other locations for their current residents by September 28th.