The Mary Wade Home, an historic and anchoring institution of the Chatham Square section of Fair Haven, and its largest employer, has issued a plea for donations of masks, tablets, and financial support in the wake of the rampaging Covid-19 pandemic.
“Mary Wade is in need of: masks (cloth and boxed), face shields, (15) Samsung Galaxy 10 Tablets, and much needed financial support,” wrote Kara Hunter, the organization’s marketing and communications manager.
The home so far has fortunately reported no incidence of the virus among its elderly residents.
However the precautions taken to sustain that positive situation have included a major financial hit, the suspending of the revenue-producing adult day care visiting program. That program brought in $100,000 a month, reported President & CEO David Hunter.
In addition to the loss of $100,00 a month, which was the revenue from the Adult Day Care Center, Hunter also enumerated:
• A cutback in transportation services.
• Reduction in the number of admissions.
• Reduction in the number of available beds to create private rooms to care for residents should they test positive.
• Increasing purchases of infection control supplies and personal protection equipment (PPE).
All this has created what Hunter described as a “Catch 22” situation, where you have to sustain care with, on the one hand, greater costs and, on the other, dramatic and sudden loss of income.
He put it this way: “All this and more has resulted in dramatic reductions to our already meager revenue streams. And the federal government has not provided for a “care package” to rescue not for profit nursing homes such as Mary Wade. Instead, the government is providing small business no or low-interest loans, but have excluded not for profit organizations AND those organizations that receive Medicaid funding, revenue already well below market rates.”
The home has reorganized so that all non-essential staff work from home — this involved increased costs — but has thus far avoided layoffs and maintained its resident care staffing levels by reassigning personnel.
In September, Mary Wade broke ground on a major new addition to its campus, a building with 84 units of assisted living including apartments for people struggling with memory loss. The plan — at least the pre-pandemic plan — is for that facility to open next year.
The organization asks those interested and able to help to contact Mary Wade at this site.
SBA runs a normal loan program for non-profits that charges 2.75% interest.