A week after announcing their intent to take ownership of The Villa, Mission Health Services CEO Gary Kelso spoke to the Sweetwater County Commissioners regarding a proposed change in services.
Mission Health seeks to take over ownership of The Villa by expediting its lease with Castle Rock Hospital District. Mission was originally set to take over ownership at the end of the six-year lease, but offered to pay the remaining bond amount the hospital district is paying for renovations made to The Villa. The hospital district and Kelso signed a lease modification last week to allow for more services at The Villa beyond the care facility The Villa currently operates as.
Kelso told the commissioners he believes The Villa could make a great location for a hospice house, a facility that would provide end-of-life care. Kelso said the upcoming merger between Mission Health and Community Nursing Services of Utah would help ease the transition to a hospice facility. Brent Jones, CEO of CNS, said he’s visited a number of hospice facilities throughout the region and has an idea of what would work in Sweetwater County. Kelso said the problem they would face if they start converting The Villa into a hospice facility, is the six residents currently living in The Villa would have to transition into another facility.
Kelso said the care licenses provided to any facility are only for particular uses and does not allow residents with one set of care needs to cohabitate with residents with a different set of care needs.
“I don’t want you to think we’re taking this lightly, because we’re not,” Kelso told the commissioners.
While the county has little involvement with Castle Rock Hospital District beyond paying the district money to help the district stabilize itself two years ago, a few commissioners were passionate in their reactions to Kelso’s presentation. Commissioner Randy Wendling said he wouldn’t support any proposal that would result in The Villa’s residents being kicked out of the building.
“It disappoints me, we’re talking about people,” Wendling said.
Commissioner John Kolb on the other hand views the change as a necessity to keeping Mission’s services in Green River. Kolb said he understands the need to stay in business because if the money support the business isn’t available, no one works.
Mission Health’s desire to take over The Villa and change services comes from an alleged problem regarding patient recruitment for The Villa. According to Kelso, the population has declined to a point where Mission Health is losing approximately $10,000 a month.
Despite attempts to promote The Villa, Kelso said the choices Mission Health has involves upgrading it to an assisted living facility similar to the Deer Trail facility in Rock Springs, closing The Villa or transforming The Villa into a hospice care home.
Kelso said transforming The Villa into an assisted-care facility would cost up to $150,000, but is unsure if the investment would pay off, saying the demand for assisted-care facilities has decreased in Sweetwater County.
A few residents with loved ones living at The Villa disagree with Kelso’s version of events. Eddie Rosenbach, whose mother lives at The Villa, doesn’t believe Mission Health has done everything they could in regards to promoting the facility. Rosenbach said major promotion for The Villa didn’t exist beyond a carnival Mission Health hosted last summer.
Rosenbach also believes Mission Health’s goal was always geared towards taking ownership of the facility and thinks the decline in The Villa’s population is a result of Mission Health purposefully not recruiting tenants for The Villa.
Mission Health isn’t the only group seeking to bring a hospice care facility to Sweetwater County.
Hospice of Sweetwater County has also approached the county commissioners to build a dedicated hospice center. Jones doesn’t believe the county’s demand for hospice services would allow for two facilities to operate within the county, but said home-based hospice care could continue after a hospice center opens.
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