Davenport To Close Nursing Home Open For Nearly 50 Years - Spokane, North Idaho News & Weather KHQ.com

Davenport To Close Nursing Home Open For Nearly 50 Years

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by Alex Rozier, KHQ Local News Reporter - bio | email

DAVENPORT, Wash. - We're less than 60 days away from a big nursing home closure in the small town of Davenport. The Lincoln County Hospital announced it will close its 35-bed nursing home July 1st along with their assisted living facility in Wilbur. Fifty plus jobs lost and more than 40 senior citizens forced to re-locate.

For Penny Piper it's hard not to reminisce after she's lived there all her life, worked there and the place she worked her mother now calls home.

"This community has really supported this place well," Piper said.

Despite the difficult decision, CEO Tom Martin says they were left with no choice.

"The reimbursement we get paid for the patients in the nursing home were just not sufficient to cover that care," Martin said.

When the closing comes, one of the people who will lose her job is the Director of Nursing, Tami French.

"They're the grandmas and grandpas I never had," French said. "It's been very difficult. It's exhausting. It's sad, you cry a lot."

Though the tears fall, it seems this town can mourn together, as they all have a story to share.

"There isn't a single place that I drive by on my way home that hasn't had someone in this facility," Penny Piper said.

So if nothing else, one thing is clear tonight. This closing cannot take the history away from this small town.

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