LOYALTON'S SKILLED NURSING AT HALLOWEEN

Halloween, like all holidays, are special at Eastern Plumas Health Care's Skilled Nursing Facilities, located in Loyalton and in Portola. 
​            Hospitals, like communities and human beings, are organic. To survive, they change; if they don’t, they die. A few years back, Eastern Plumas Health Care’s skilled nursing facilities were threatened with closure when the state of California decided it wanted to pay less for services—not just now, but in the past, as well. This meant that EPHC would have to pay millions of dollars to the state. The hospital scaled back its skilled nursing operations, fought hard, and won. Not a single resident was displaced.
Now, with that fight in the past, the hospital is busily scaling up its skilled nursing census. In fact, when Country Villa, Quincy’s nursing home, was forced to close recently, EPHC took several of its patients. Now that EPHC is ramping up operations again, it has invited several more of those patients to return.
            Over the years, this hospital, which was originally an arm of the railroad, has changed to meet the needs of its community. Specialty clinic services now include dermatology, urology, and gastroenterology, among others that cater to the needs of an aging population.
Further, EPHC offers a unique opportunity for its elderly residents, many of whom have lived here for most of their lives and some for generations, to live their final phase in a small, family oriented skilled nursing facility in their home community.
            EPHC’s skilled nursing facilities are thriving because they offer something our community needs—a sense of communal self-reliance to the very end of life. Together, this hospital and community will continue to help each other through cycles of change and survival as we have for generations. We show no signs of being finished here any time soon.
            For information on EPHC’s skilled nursing facilities, or to schedule a visit, contact Lorraine Noble, Director of Nursing: 530.832.6546.

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