Residents of a Butler County personal care home have been given a 30-day notice to move because the facility is closing by the end of the year.
Paramount Health Resources Inc. CEO James Cox on Thursday cited COVID-19 related staffing costs as the reason for the closure of the 92-bed Paramount Senior Living at Cranberry center, a secure facility for people with dementia and other memory problems, which is located in Seven Fields Borough. Forty-six people live at the facility.
“Nursing salaries are at least 50% higher than pre-pandemic,” Mr. Cox said. “In that market, we’re just not able to do it and provide the services we want. It’s just a struggle.”
Paramount used higher-trained staffing at the facility than its competitors, driving up costs that could no longer be shifted to residents and families, he said. It was uncertain how many employees would relocate to other Paramount facilities.
In a Nov. 7 letter to residents, Mr. Cox cited “physical limitations of the facility” as the reason for the closure, which was planned for the end of the year.
“Our community has been a great source of pride for the love and incredible care it has provided to its residents and their families since first opening,” Mr. Cox wrote in the Nov. 7 letter. “However, physical limitations of the facility have made maintaining operations in the market unsustainable.”
Paramount Senior Living at Cranberry is a personal care home that was first licensed in 2004 with formation of the for-profit Peters Township-based long term care provider. No violations were reported in the most recent inspection of the facility, which was done in July, according to state Department of Human Resources records.
Higher pandemic-related labor costs were also cited in the closing of Baptist Senior Family’s 54-bed personal care home and 126-bed nursing home in Mt. Lebanon by year’s end, which was announced in September, and in the closing of the Charles Morris nursing home in Squirrel Hill last year. The state-federal Medicaid program offsets the cost of nursing home care, but personal care is less intensive and mostly private pay with no government reimbursement.
Kris B. Mamula: kmamula@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1699
First Published: November 10, 2022, 4:16 p.m.