New veterans home to link DECH complex

MACHIAS – The $4 million Maine Veterans’ Homes facility announced last week will be just one component of a 108-bed medical and residential care complex planned for the campus of Down East Community Hospital, officials announced Wednesday.

Marshall Manor, a private facility that serves the elderly as well as people with mental illness and retardation, will tear down its current boarding home in downtown and build a 42-bed assisted living facility on the hospital’s 47-acre campus.

Marshall Manor, the 30-bed veterans home announced June 3 and Down East Community Hospital will have a combined 108 beds.

Timothy J. Politis, chief executive officer of Maine Veterans’ Homes, said Marshall Manor will provide laundry and food services to the veterans home. That allows the economy of scale that is needed for a facility with just 30 beds, he said.

The veterans home will be designed to serve Maine veterans and their family members who are suffering from early dementia. It will be physically connected with Marshall Manor, one of nine assisted-living facilities owned by Rockland businessman Bernard Davis Jr.

Marshall Manor administrator Doug Watermolen said Davis had been planning to rebuild when he learned that Maine Veterans’ Homes wanted to build in Washington County. So Marshall Manor and the hospital submitted a joint proposal to Maine Veterans’ Homes.

Wayne Dodwell, chief executive officer of Down East Community Hospital, said the hospital will provide medical services to both facilities and lease hospital land for the new buildings. The hospital occupies 10 acres of its campus and will lease whatever of the remainder is needed for $1 for 99 years, he said.

The new veterans home will be funded with a $2.6 million allocation from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and $1.4 million in private financing raised by Maine Veterans’ Homes, a state corporation that was established in 1977.

St. Pierre said the veterans home will have 19 or 20 full-time equivalent positions. Marshall Manor will add six people to its staff of 30. DECH employs approximately 200 people.

Calais Regional Hospital, one of the competing applicants to serve as the site of the new veterans home, also offered space on its campus.

But Bob St. Pierre, chief financial officer for Maine Veterans’ Homes, said Calais Regional is a critical access facility and isn’t able to provide the same kind of pricing or the potential for volume discounting as Down East Community Hospital and Marshall Manor.

Just last year, DECH was also considering downsizing to become a critical access facility – a federal designation that provides higher medical and state reimbursement for serving the poor and elderly in exchange for reducing the number of beds and the average length of patient stays.

Community opposition to the proposal was so strong and proved so divisive that the hospital’s chief executive officer and the chairman of its board of trustees resigned, saying they didn’t want to stand in the way of a decision.

Dodwell said that when he arrived in September, the hospital board decided the future of DECH was “in growth, not shrinkage.”

Dodwell said DECH, which was $440,000 in the black as of May 31, is revitalizing itself by offering new services and bringing in more energy.

In addition to the veterans home and Marshall Manor, the hospital hopes to add a women’s health center and a cancer center to the campus, he said.

Construction of both the veterans home and Marshall Manor is expected to begin next spring and take 18 months, according to Politis.

All the rooms will be private, and the design of the building will be for early-stage dementia – eliminating dead-end corridors and hallways that can be frustrating for people who tend to wander, he said.

Watermolen said the new Marshall Manor will employ the same interior courtyard design that is currently favored for the amount of light it allows into a facility.