Dateline: February 22, 2007

Medical Center Nursing Home gets new name

Medical Center Nursing Home got a new name last Tuesday when the Donley County Hospital Board unanimously voted for the title “Saints’ Roost Manor.”

Administrator Vicky Robertson suggested the new moniker as part of what’s called a “culture change” in the nursing home industry that is seeking to make facilities more like home and less like institutions.

“We have to submit paperwork to the state and to Medicare,” Robertson said, “but once that’s done, we’ll begin changing the name on bank accounts and everything else.”

The facility that houses the nursing home has been known as the Medical Center ever since it opened in 1971. Robertson said she came up with Saints’ Roost Manor as a way to reflect the history of the community.

But the name is not the only new thing that culture change is bringing to Clarendon’s nursing home.

“We’ve torn out the counter at the nurses’ station to create a more open and home-like environment (in the dining room),” Robertson said. “We’ve relocated the coffee bar and ice machine in preparation for serving breakfast buffet style to those who are able.”

The buffet breakfast with extended dining hours will be tested for a month before being extended to lunch and dinner, Robertson said. If residents don’t want to come to breakfast at 7:30 a.m., they don’t have to. They can eat from a hot breakfast buffet until 9 a.m., and a continental breakfast bar will be available until 10 a.m.

“Residents like the idea of culture change,” Robertson said. “They like the way the barriers are down at the nurses’ station, so they can wheel right up to the desk. They like the way the staff is more accessible.”

Curtains and other changes are also coming on the horizon.

“Ultimately, everything you do is to improve the quality of life for the people who live here,” Robertson said.