Letter to the Editor for Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Dear Editor,

It was the second week of March 2020, Sonia and I were in Janesville, Wisconsin attending a seminar on raising game birds. Something I thought would be fun to do in retirement. At the conference there were participants from all over the United States, Canada, France, England, Scotland, Ukraine, Belgium, and other European counties. We all piled on crowed tour buses, went out for meals in crowed restaurants. No mask, no thoughts or worries of COVID, life was good.

By Friday afternoon, there were rumors of toilet paper shortages, and talk of COVID was on the street.

On the drive home, I was notified that Hi-Line Retirement Center had been instructed by the Dept. of Health to “lock down”. How, the world changed that week. None of us ever dreamed it would last this long. We even hoped that it would pass over our community, and somehow, we would be spared. It was August 2020 before COVID made an appearance in Phillips County.

The facility struggled through last fall when nearly 90% of the residents and 60% of staff fell victim to COVID. In the nursing home there were 10 deaths associated with COVID.

After Christmas we had no additional cases of COVID with staff or residents. We all hoped the pandemic was behind us and things would return to normal. This fall once again COVID reappeared affecting residents and staff; thankfully cases were few and mild.

Pre COVID, Hi-Line Retirement Center’s average census was 42. Post COVID average census is 30 and has dropped as low as 27. This is not unique to Hi-Line Retirement Center, in all nursing homes in Montana census are down 20% - 30% post COVID. Operating HLRC with a census of 30 is not sustainable, and I do not see any change in census in the future. There has to be changes.

Do you continue business as usual, and become a Blockbuster Video store, or change with the time like Amazon? Expect changes at HLRC in the months to come. The board and I are pursuing all possibilities.

- Duane Murray

Administrator

Hi-Line Retirement Center