As part of their ongoing federal American Rescue Plan funding recipient tour, some Luzerne County Council members stopped at the Allied Services Center City skilled Nursing Facility on East Northampton Street in Wilkes-Barre Monday.
Council awarded $500,000 to install more effective ventilation and air handling systems throughout the facility. This work aims to help mitigate illnesses, such as COVID-19, that are particularly threatening to the vulnerable nursing home population.
A nonprofit, Allied Services Personal Care purchased the East Northampton Street property and another elder care complex in Wilkes-Barre from the Diocese of Scranton in 2019. The sale ensured these properties would continue to provide residential skilled nursing care on a not-for-profit basis with a local, volunteer board of directors, its American Rescue summary said.
“Nonprofit nursing homes play a critical role in meeting the health and personal care/support needs of a fast-growing population: the very aged and chronically ill, most of them fixed- and low-income,” the summary said.
The American Rescue-funded air quality improvements coincide with Allied Services’ own $10 million project to renovate the structure.
Jim Brogna, vice president of strategic partnerships at Allied Services, told council members the nonprofit’s renovation project included the creation of 42 private skilled nursing beds on the third and fourth floors in space that once housed a personal care area.
Added to the 50 already there, the facility has 92 skilled nursing beds, he said.
Brogna said Allied chose to increase skilled nursing beds because they are needed in this community, while the focus of many others has been personal care facilities that attract more lucrative private payments.
The reconfigured fourth-floor space is now open. Brogna and his team are actively working on recruiting more employees needed to open the third floor. Council members visited the unoccupied third floor Monday so they would not jeopardize residents’ privacy.
All the furnishings and finishes are new, and Brogna demonstrated a late evening hallway nightlight feature that is more conducive to rest than the typical jarring institutional lighting.
“Whether they’re coming for a week or the rest of their life, it’s their home,” Brogna said.
Downstairs, the chapel was relocated, freeing up space for a new therapy gym designed to help residents with mobility, including an area to practice on appliances they would need to operate if they return home.
Passing through a refreshed dining space, council members checked out a revamped outdoor area that Brogna said has been described as “an oasis” for its new landscaping and a privacy fence that blocks out much of the surrounding city bustle.
Council members John Lombardo, LeeAnn McDermott, Tim McGinley, Matthew Mitchell and Brian Thornton participated in the tour along with county Manager Romilda Crocamo and county grant writer Michele Sparich, who has been assisting with American Rescue management.
The visits were scheduled to show the public the uses of $55 million in American Rescue awards to 113 outside entities.
Lombardo, council’s vice chairman, said he was impressed by the overall operation of the Allied Services Center City facility and the transformation of the 1971 building into a modern nursing home.
Through his work in emergency services, Lombardo said he routinely interacts with skilled nursing facilities.
“This one is a very big deviation from many I visit — in a positive way,” Lombardo said of the Allied facility. “I would not be upset if I knew a relative of mine was going there.”