After years of struggling with staffing issues, senior living provider Friendship Manor in New Ipswich is shutting down next month.

In an interview Tuesday, co-owner and co-administrator Gary Cahoon said the facility would be closing May 8, after being unable to fill full-time positions for carers.

“It’s 100% staffing,” Cahoon said. “We can’t hire enough staff to keep going.”

Cahoon and his wife, Cindy Cahoon, have owned and operated the Friendship Manor for 37 years. The facility, located at 151 Main St. in New Ipswich, has been some form of a nursing, retirement or rest home since at least 1952, according to Cahoon.

Friendship Manor usually supports about 20 residents, and requires between eight and 10 full-time-equivalent staff positions, usually spread over 15 to 17 full- and part-time workers, Cahoon said. According to Cahoon, nursing staff has been consistently difficult to hire for many years, which is an industry-wide issue, but he said since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, hiring struggles have increased sharply.

Cahoon said when he advertises for positions on venues like Facebook, he gets a lot of initial interest, but that interest doesn’t pan out into interviews.

“It wasn’t like there was anything that turned them off – we never even got to the point of asking what they would make or the benefits. They would just ghost me,” Cahoon said. “That’s been all through the pandemic.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ current employment survey data, health employment fell precipitously during the early days of the pandemic, dropping more than 9% in April of 2020, from 16.5 million jobs in February of that year to 14.9 million in April. While those numbers did bounce back throughout the pandemic, employment numbers were still down by about 500,000 from their pre-pandemic numbers by November 2021.

Nursing homes and community care facilities continue to struggle with decreases in employment, while other health care sectors have begun to bounce back, according to the bureau.

Cahoon said that strain was especially felt in rural areas, and it is something Friendship Manor has felt particularly keenly. He said he is currently down two full-time-equivalent positions, and was intending to fill them and carry on, but after two potential hires did not show for their scheduled interviews, and one interviewee was only available a few days a month, he said he decided it was time to step down and retire, and close the facility. 

“If they showed up, we probably would have stayed open. Our existing staff has been heroic for several months pulling extra shifts, but it’s getting to be too much,” Cahoon said.

Friendship Manor currently houses 17 residents, two of whom are currently placed at outside rehabilitation facilities, Cahoon said, and he has been working with other facilities in the state to find residents permanent placements prior to May 8.

“We have a lot of people that don’t have much or any contact with their families,” Cahoon said. “It’s our full-time job right now to make sure they have a place to go.”

Cahoon said in the past week, he has been visiting other retirement communities and working with Genesis Healthcare to locate possible placements. Currently he said six residents have found “pretty certain” placements.

Cahoon said many facilities are facing the same staffing shortage he is, and though they have the beds available, they do not have the staff available to care for a full cadre of patients.

“They have the physical space, but they have people waiting for beds,” Cahoon said. “Even small facilities, they may have two beds, but don’t feel they have enough staff to take more than one.”

Cahoon said careful procedures throughout the pandemic have resulted in some staff cases of COVID-19 at Friendship Manor, but none among his residents. Strangely, he said, that’s now an issue, as at least one facility he has approached said they would only take residents who had already contracted and recovered from the virus.

Cahoon said finding placements and closing the business will be his main focus in the coming weeks.

At age 74, Cahoon said he will be fully retiring once the facility closes. His wife, a nurse practitioner, will continue to practice. The Cahoons will be placing the building up for sale.

“We’ve been through a lot of ups and downs, but the town has been very supportive,” Cahoon said. “We appreciate the work of the Fire Department, the ambulance and the town. We appreciate all of it, and this is not the way we thought this would end. This has been about half my life, and it’s been very rewarding. I don’t regret having done this work at all. We’ve provided good care to hundreds of people, but all good things come to an end.”

Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertrancript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.