Five SouthCoast Nursing Homes Set to Close

NEW BEDFORD — Five area nursing homes, three of which are located in New Bedford, will soon be closing their doors amidst apparent financial troubles.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health announced Wednesday that Skyline Healthcare, based in New Jersey, would be voluntarily surrendering its licenses for the five SouthCoast nursing homes.

The Department of Public Health had recently ordered the nursing homes to stop accepting new patients, citing "ongoing operational issues" at the facilities. An administrator at one of the nursing homes recently told media outlets that the facility was severely short-staffed because workers who had received late paychecks or no pay at all had ceased showing up for work.

The nursing homes set to close soon are:

• Bedford Village and Rehabilitation Care (New Bedford)
• Rockdale Care and Rehabilitation Center (New Bedford)
• Bedford Gardens Care and Rehabilitation (New Bedford)
• Dighton Care and Rehabilitation (Dighton)
• Highland Manor Care and Rehabilitation Center (Fall River)

"We understand that this process may be unsettling and stressful for residents and their families, and DPH is working closely with the Executive Office of Elder Affairs (EOEA) Long Term Care Ombudsman to ensure that residents’ healthcare needs are being met during this time, and that they will be appropriately relocated to other facilities," said the Department of Public Health in a statement.

A timeline of when the nursing homes would close was not immediately provided by the Department of Public Health.