The Lost Coast Outpost, a Northern California newspaper, has shared a short video from the October 13, 2016 protest at Brius’ Pacific Rehabilitation & Wellness Center in Eureka.

During the two-hour protest, local residents chanted, held signs, and distributed literature to oppose Brius’ attempt to shutter three nursing homes and evict approximately 190 medically fragile residents. In the video, residents can be heard chanting “Shame on Shlomo” while waving signs that read “This closure will kill” and “Save our elders.”

Shlomo Rechnitz is the multi-billionaire owner of Brius, California’s largest nursing home company. Brius holds a virtual monopoly over Humboldt County’s 466 nursing home beds and allegedly is using the threatened closures and the mass eviction of elderly residents to try to extract higher reimbursement rates from Medicaid.

The growing anger over Brius’ attempt to shutter three nursing homes in Humboldt County reached a new high point yesterday as family members, local elected officials, and community members held a two-hour protest outside a Brius facility in Eureka to oppose the eviction of approximately 190 medically fragile residents, mostly to other counties.

The protest – which received coverage in print, radio, and television media outlets – took place outside Pacific Rehabilitation and Wellness Center, the first of three nursing homes that Brius is attempting to close.

According to the Eureka Times-Standard, “protesters waved signs at the passing commuters and chanted lines such as ‘People over profits,’ ‘Senior lives matter,’ ‘This closure will kill,’ and ‘Shame on Shlomo.’” Brius, the Los Angeles-based corporation that operates the largest nursing home chain in California and holds a virtual monopoly over Humboldt’s 466 nursing home beds, is owned by multi-billionaire Shlomo Rechnitz.

If Brius follows through on its closure plans, dozens of elderly and medically fragile residents will be evicted and displaced to other nursing homes across Northern California and Oregon. Jeff Graham, whose 77-year-old mother lives at Pacific Rehabilitation and Wellness Center, is fearful of what the home’s closure will mean for him and his mother. “If she moves away, I will not be able to visit her any more. She’s scared of what the future is going to bring. I just don’t see how they can disrupt life like this…She deserves better than this,” Graham told the Times-Standard.

Kellie Shaner, who recently moved her mother from a nursing home in Crescent City to the Eureka Rehabilitation and Wellness Center, told the Times-Standard that her mother is “devastated” and “terrified,” adding that “to increase the miles between us and her for potentially a second time and not knowing where she’s going is terrifying for all of us.”

Media outlets reporting on this action include:

• NBC 3 News.“Protests over impending closures of three skilled nursing facilities schedule for Thursday” (10/12/2016).
• Eureka Times-Standard. “’People over profits’”: Families of nursing home patients call on Brius to stop closures” (10/13/2016).
• KMUD. “Protesters set to rally against Rockport closure” (10/13/2016).
• Lost Coast Outpost: “’Shame on Shlomo’: Citizens Protest the Pending Closure of Local Nursing Homes” (10/13/2016).
• NBC 3 News. “Protests over impending closures of three skilled nursing facilities” (10/14/2016).

Brius and its owner, Los Angeles-based billionaire Shlomo Rechnitz, continue to draw the ire of local community members about their plan to shutter three Humboldt County nursing homes.

On October 6, the Eureka Times Standard published a column by Eric Duff, an Episcopal priest and licensed clinical social worker in Humboldt County. The following is an excerpt:

Losing as many as 258 beds for this purpose would be a disaster. Perhaps a larger community could tolerate this, but not Humboldt County. Here, every bed is precious. I have visited each of our nursing homes on many occasions, and certainly have had reasons for complaining. They are notoriously understaffed…

We must do something as a community before the corporate machine of Rockport Healthcare Services, a subsidiary of the much larger Brius corporation, which controls five of the six care-home facilities in Humboldt County and 98 percent of its licensed beds, gets away with its plan to close three of these facilities…

[J]ust wait until there isn’t a bed available within a three-hour radius for you or your loved one facing the need for ongoing medical care. “People are deeply concerned about the scorched-earth policy this company is bringing forward,” said state Sen. Mike McGuire (Sacramento Bee, Sept. 24). We need to do whatever we can to avert this crisis.

Eric Duff joins a rising crescendo of voices opposed to Brius’ plans including nursing home residents, family members, elder advocates, healthcare workers, long-term care ombudsmen, and state and local legislators.

Brius Healthcare’s Shlomo Rechnitz is facing more public criticism for his threat to shut down three nursing homes and evict more than 200 elderly and disabled residents in Humboldt County.

On October 6, John Heckel – a newspaper columnist and senior advocate – published a piece in the North Coast Journal that tells the story of some of the nursing homes’ residents. Heckel takes Rechnitz to task for his threat and calls on the public to step forward to assist the residents.

Here are a couple of excerpts from the column, entitled “Brius This, Seaview That.”

The resident of room No. 50 in the west wing of Seaview is named Alfred. He has been living in room No. 50 for two and a half years. Alfred has been married for 47 years. His wife lives in a local residential care facility. His required level of care exceeds what a residential facility can provide but he and his wife are still able to see each other once a week. Alfred is scared. He fears being out on the street and not being able to see his wife again.

Heckel then turns his attention to Rechnitz, whom he says has an estimated net worth of $2.4 billion. Rechnitz recently took out full-page advertisements in the local newspaper to try to deflect the public’s anger at his threatened mass evictions. Heckel writes:

The next time you see double-page ads written and signed by Brius, as if Brius were a real human being, question why there is not a real person, with real Humboldt County connections, taking responsibility for those claims. The next time our local newspapers come out with articles describing how Brius Healthcare Services wants Partnership Healthplan “to step up and prevent the closures,” remember…Alfred and his wife…The next time Brius and its administrative company, Rockport Healthcare Services, suggest that they are helpless to stop the foreclosures, remember the owner of Brius…Shlomo Rechnitz…can end all of this with one act of human decency.

Brius is experiencing another round of sharp criticism as its controversial effort to shutter three Humboldt County nursing homes moves one step closer to reality.

The latest criticism was triggered by the California Department of Public Health’s approval, issued September 28, of Brius’ “Closure and Relocation Plans” for the three facilities. Click here to see the CDPH’s letter to Brius regarding its Eureka, Pacific, and Seaview rehabilitation and wellness centers.

Under California law, the state agency cannot force Brius to continue operating the facilities. Instead, the agency’s responsibility is to ensure that Brius’ closure plans meet minimum state standards.

Brius’ insistence on shutting the nursing homes and evicting hundreds of frail elderly and disabled residents has drawn the ire of residents, elected officials, eldercare advocates, and others.

“This is devastating news,” said Assemblymember Jim Wood, who represents communities throughout California’s North Coast, including Humboldt County.  “We are beyond disappointed that, after numerous attempts to prevent this closure, Rockport remained steadfast in walking away from more than 200 vulnerable residents and their family.”

Rockport is a Brius-owned management services company.

California’s Long-Term Care Ombudsman Joe Rodrigues told the Sacramento Bee that CDPHs decision to allow the closure of these three nursing homes would have a “catastrophic impact” and added “that frail residents could suffer or even die from being uprooted and moved to faraway places.”

California Senator Mike McGuire, who in the past has referred to Brius’ closure plan as “irresponsible” and “devastating,” told the Eureka Times Standard that the simultaneous closure of so many nursing homes would “[put] the health and safety of our most vulnerable residents at risk.”

If Brius follows through with the closure plans, Humboldt County would lose 258 of its 446 skilled nursing beds – a 60 percent reduction.

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The planned closure of 3 Humboldt nursing homes was mentioned on “The California Report” this morning. “The California Report” airs on KQED Public Radio, San Francisco’s NPR-member radio station.

According to the report,

“By the end of the day Wednesday, the state Department of Public Health should decide if three skilled nursing homes in Humboldt County have met state criteria to close. Some 190 frail and elderly residents might have to relocate, about 150 of them out of the county. The facilities are owned by Los Angeles-based Brius Healthcare Services, which owns five of the six nursing homes in the County and many more around the state.”

Since last week, several news stories critical of Brius’ plans to shutter 3 of its 5 nursing homes in Humboldt – Eureka, Pacific, and Seaview rehabilitation and wellness centers – have appeared in the North Coast Journal, Eureka Times Standard, and Sacramento Bee. These come as the California Department of Public Health is set to release its ruling on Brius’ revised closure plans sometime today (9/28/2016).

On September 22^nd, the Journal wrote that interested groups – community members, elder advocates, labor groups, and political officials – have scrutinized Brius’ closure plans, alleging that Brius is “simply putting large profits over basic community – and human – needs,” adding that the closure of these facilities will have “reverberating impacts throughout Humboldt County.”

Similarly, on September 23^rd, the Eureka Times Standard issued a story that quotes California Senator Mike McGuire as saying “the ripple effect of simultaneous closures will impact 58 percent of skilled nursing home beds in Humboldt County. It will usher in a health care system crisis, which is completely avoidable because these closures are voluntary.”

Lastly, a story from the Sacramento Bee (September 24) stated that Brius’ intentions to close these 3 nursing homes would be the second time the corporation has taken such a step in the past 18 months. The Bee went on to add,

“In 2014, the company closed a nursing home in rural Fresno County after state officials threatened to shut it down as a result of ‘immediate and serious risks’ to residents. Nearly 80 residents at Wish-I-Ah Healthcare & Wellness Centre near Auberry were transferred, with some making the 450-mile journey to Humboldt County.”

Many of these former Wish-I-Ah residents are now being prepared for yet another transfer, one that could land them as far away as Klamath Falls, Oregon, nearly 200 miles north of these Humboldt nursing homes.

On September 16, California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR) sent a letter to California’s Department of Public Health (CDPH) “strongly” urging it to reject Brius’ revised closure plans for three Humboldt nursing homes – Eureka, Pacific, and Seaview rehabilitation and wellness centers.

According to the letter, the amended plans still do not meet the concerns raised by the CDPH in its September 8 rejection letter, nor does it fall in line with state and federal regulations for closures and regulations. As a result, CANHR is asking CDPH to appoint receivers to operate the nursing homes rather than accept Brius’ plans to shutter them.

Here are some of the key points raised in CANHR’s letter:

There are only 39 available nursing home beds in Humboldt County, falling short of the amount needed for the 190 residents that would be displaced from Eureka, Pacific, and Seaview rehabilitation and wellness centers as a result of their closures.

Although Brius’ lists 48 nursing homes as possible transfer destinations for displaced residents, only half (24) actually have available bed space.

Of the 24 nursing homes that have available bed space, 23 are at least 100 miles from Eureka, including 5 that are in Oregon.

15 of these 24 nursing homes with open beds have been given “below average” ratings from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

There are 10 different Northern California counties where residents may end up as a result of the planned closures of these nursing homes. The list includes Butte, Colusa, Del Norte, Glenn, Lake, Mendocino, Shasta, Siskiyou, Sonoma, and Tehema Counties. Del Norte County is the nearest of these, and it is still more than 80 miles from Eureka.

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