Nursing the home to health

City aims to save geriatric facility

Malden officials have a plan for McFadden Memorial Manor. (Dina Rudick/Globe Staff/File 2006)

Local legislators are working to have McFadden Memorial Manor, an aging city-run nursing home in Malden, set up with the ability to oversee its own budget.

As a geriatric authority - run much like a housing authority - the outmoded McFadden no longer would be managed by the city, under which the 61-bed facility on Forest Street has been losing about $500,000 annually for some time. McFadden residents long have called for improvements to the home, which was built in the late 1880s as a poor farm and is in need of more than $1 million in capital improvements.

Earlier this month, the Malden City Council voted unanimously to send legislators a home-rule petition to make McFadden a geriatric authority akin to those in Milford and Holyoke, council president Gary Christenson said.

"We need it to get through the House and the Senate, and we need the governor's signature," said Christenson, who has been working with the Friends of McFadden support group to keep the nursing home from being shut down following Mayor Richard C. Howard's declaration that the city should get out of the nursing home business. "It's another step forward."

Charles Toomajian, special assistant to the mayor, has long been working on what to do about McFadden, which he said currently has about 40 residents.

"Rather than close the place down, we are looking for alternatives for how to keep the place up and functioning," Toomajian said. "A geriatric authority would go ahead and allow an independent body to run the facilty, and it would be out of the city's hands. . . . This seems to be the most viable option to maintain it as the facility it is today."

Valerie Folk Melanson, a Friends of McFadden organizer whose brother lives at the nursing home, said residents and supporters are "cautiously optimistic" about the change.

She said many had wanted McFadden to remain under the city's province, but a geriatric authority was the next best outcome and better than being taken over by a private company that might not uphold the high level of care McFadden has been known to provide.

"It's not a done deal, obviously, but at least we are still moving foward and the doors are still open," she said.

Board members already have been chosen to run the geriatric authority. One of the board's first tasks would be to figure out what improvements McFadden needs. The home, which has shared rooms and no private bathrooms, has long been unable to properly compete with more modern facilities and the large range of services they provide.

"It's one of the first times in the past year where we feel we can be optimistic," Folk Melanson said. "It's also great that we are all now working in the same direction, the city and McFadden. . . . Hopefully, this little roller coaster ride will end in the right way for us."

State Senator Richard R. Tisei, who represents Malden, is working to make the geriatric authority a reality.

"We only have a month left in session, so there are some time constraints," Tisei said.

The bill, he added, is currently being looked at by a clerk to decide if the matter needs a recorded roll call vote. If it does, that vote would need to occur before July 31, when the legislative session ends.

Tisei said he is pushing the bill for several reasons.

"I think, first of all, it's important that the city decide what the future of McFadden be, and it seems that the plan put together locally makes a lot of sense. And it's worth giving it a try to ensure that the facility remains open and still able to provide the care that it has been known for over the years."

In addition, he said, he feels that Malden is going "against the grain" by working so hard to avoid shutting the place down, as other municipalities have done with similar city-run facilities.

"Over the years you've seen cities really divesting themselves of those," Tisei said.

"It is nice to have a healthcare facility that is . . . locally owned and still locally run. The authority seems to be a good model to ensure that that facilty stays open."

Erin Ailworth can be reached at eailworth@globe.com.