Wisconsin residents resist county plans to promote nursing houses

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• A number of grassroots campaigns intention to halt the privatization of county-owned nursing houses, which are usually higher staffed, have larger high quality of care and draw fewer complaints than services owned by for-profits and nonprofits.

• A for-profit firm determined in opposition to shopping for Lincoln County’s nursing house following an organizer and board member’s lawsuit. Organizing in Sauk County has drawn federal regulators’ consideration. Public nursing house supporters in St. Croix County packed a gathering the place board members finally voted in opposition to promoting.

Nancy Roppe, 64, has recommendation for anybody talking at a Portage County Board assembly: Write your assertion down, rehearse it forward of time and preserve it beneath three minutes.

As she leaves house for every board assembly, her husband Joe provides his personal recommendation to his spouse: “Don’t get tased.”

Roppe, a self-described “5 foot nothing, crippled little previous woman,” fiercely opposes promoting Portage County’s public nursing house to a non-public bidder. She’s spent years inflicting “good hassle” in voicing that opinion to elected board members. Deputies have escorted her out of conferences “greater than as soon as,” she mentioned.

Board members say the county can now not afford to function the nursing house. They see Roppe otherwise, describing her as caustic, extraordinarily loud and unproductive. But it surely’s exhausting to disclaim the affect she and different organizers have achieved. The nursing house stays in county fingers — for now.  

Throughout years of debate over the Portage County Well being Care Heart’s destiny, organizers efficiently landed two referendums on the poll to extend its funding, each of which voters accepted. And after Roppe and her colleagues in 2024 highlighted the poor repute of 1  potential purchaser, the board selected to not settle for its provide.

A number of grassroots campaigns throughout Wisconsin intention to halt the privatization of county-owned nursing houses, which are usually higher staffed, have larger high quality of care and draw fewer complaints than services owned by for-profits and nonprofits, as WPR and Wisconsin Watch beforehand reported.

Portage County, whose nursing house holds an ideal 5-star federal ranking, was considered one of not less than 5 Wisconsin counties final 12 months that thought-about promoting, began the gross sales course of or offered their county-owned nursing houses citing budgetary issues. 

Proponents of retaining nursing houses in county fingers have created social media pages, yard indicators, T-shirts, and petitions and led protests — all devoted to slowing and stopping gross sales. 

A for-profit firm determined in opposition to shopping for Lincoln County’s nursing house after an organizer and board member sued the county over the sale. Organizing in Sauk County has drawn federal regulators’ consideration. Public nursing house supporters in St. Croix County packed a gathering the place board members finally voted in opposition to promoting.

However a few of these victories could show short-lived. Sauk County’s board accepted a purchaser final 12 months, Lincoln County is in search of new consumers, and the Portage County Board voted in December to once more think about a sale.

“If I can throw a monkey wrench in what they’re attempting to do, I’m going to exhaust each doable avenue to do this,” Roppe mentioned in an interview.

However after years of preventing the sale, she may be operating out of choices. 

Sister’s reminiscence fuels advocacy

Roppe’s older sister Carol may make buddies with full strangers.

“That was considered one of her greatest issues,” Roppe recalled. “She simply knew everyone.”

Carol, a longtime nurse, was 57 years previous when she started needing care following a kidney most cancers analysis. She lived at house between therapies — till the day she fell. The most cancers had deteriorated her backbone, which the small slip fractured. With no manner for her household to provide her correct care at house, she moved into the Portage County Well being Care Heart. 

Roppe visited her every single day till Carol died in 2015.

When the Portage County Board began discussing promoting the nursing house, Roppe began to talk up at its conferences, tapping her consolation with public talking.

“I acquired a giant mouth and I take advantage of it,” she mentioned.

In 2018 Roppe and different organizers campaigned for individuals to vote in favor of a poll referendum to lift taxes to maintain the nursing house in county fingers.  

Voters accepted it with 61% of the vote. 

However Portage County board members fear about extra than simply working prices. The middle was inbuilt 1931 and hasn’t been considerably up to date in 30 years. The constructing wants main renovations, board members and advocates acknowledge.

A 2022 referendum requested voters whether or not they would tackle larger taxes to construct a brand new facility. That handed, too, incomes 59% of the vote. 

However county leaders haven’t moved ahead with building. They are saying the county can’t afford it, even with the voter-approved levy, attributable to rising building prices. The board rejected advocates’ requires one more referendum. 

“Is that this a enterprise that Portage County needs to be in?” That’s what Portage County Board Chair Ray Reser asks. He says the county board is concentrated on retaining the nursing house beds in Portage County, even when the county now not owns them. The groundswell of help for the nursing house doesn’t shock him.

“It’s a extremely beloved establishment within the county,” Reser mentioned, whereas including that it’s not the power it as soon as was. 

When Carol moved into the nursing house, Roppe knew it didn’t have the latest facilities or the nicest constructing. But it surely had the very best care, which the federal authorities nonetheless charges “a lot above common.” 

Portage County’s solely different nursing house is for-profit and rated “under common.”

Roppe now spends some whole days organizing to guard the nursing house, though a decade has handed since her sister lived there.

Earlier than main board votes, the Roppes publish the assembly agenda and different particulars to their “Save the Portage County Well being Care Heart” Fb group.” Nancy prints and delivers agendas to advocates with out social media and crafts her personal public assertion. Joe units up a livestream of the conferences for these wanting to look at at house, and Nancy arrives in-person not less than quarter-hour early. 

Nancy follows every assembly by typing up a colourful abstract to share with those that couldn’t watch. “The Grinch is alive and effectively in Portage County,” she wrote in December after the board voted to solicit consumers. 

“I benefit from the battle,” she mentioned. “I want I didn’t need to battle, however I’ll take the battle on.”

St. Croix County organizers see victory

Practically 200 miles west of Portage County, the St. Croix Well being Care Campus is now not the topic of a privatization debate.

A dialogue about promoting prompted opponents to flood a St. Croix County board assembly final August. 

“There have been greater than 100 slightly irritated previous individuals there,” mentioned 70-year-old Celeste Koeberl, who attended.

The board finally voted to maintain the extremely rated nursing house public, figuring out its income would probably develop, aided by larger state reimbursements and a federal grant to open a dementia wing.

Board Chair Bob Lengthy mentioned his colleagues by no means severely thought-about a sale. However Koeberl credit native organizers with a victory. 

“I feel that that’s an encouraging factor, that after we present up, after we communicate up, we will make a constructive distinction, and we must always do not forget that,” Koeberl mentioned.

She doesn’t know anybody on the nursing house however joined neighbors in opposing the sale after studying concerning the chance final summer season — seeing the middle as offering high quality care that the county can’t afford to lose.

“All people has expertise with an older particular person of their household who wants assist, and everyone who faces that learns the dearth of assets,” Koeberl mentioned.

In Portage County, nursing house advocates face challenges in sustaining the power that propelled them early of their battle. They repeatedly stuffed county board conferences years in the past, Nancy Roppe mentioned, however now simply six to eight attend every assembly, with further of us at notably essential ones. Some core group members have died lately.

“Persons are going to grow old and sicker and are simply not going to have the ability to bodily do it anymore,” Roppe mentioned. 

At a December board assembly, 9 individuals testified in opposition to promoting, with two talking in favor. Nonetheless, the board voted 17-8 to maneuver a step nearer by approving a possible sale.

Roppe likes to remind her colleagues that they’ve a profitable file to date, regardless of the challenges.

“You can’t now get all depressed,” she mentioned. “The battle continues.”

Advocates take case to state officers

Portage County’s nursing house debate has swirled for almost all of Grace Skibicki’s 14 years residing there. She will’t recall any board members in search of her opinion.

“What’s their beef with us?” Skibicki requested. “Is it as a result of we’re previous and we don’t rely?”

She moved into the nursing house following a stroke in 2011. With out a simple strategy to be a part of conferences from the nursing house, she depends on buddies for updates.

Skibicki worries public stress received’t be sufficient to influence the board to faucet the brakes on a sale. Board members received’t be up for reelection till 2026.

However promoting the power would additionally require state approval.

That’s why the Roppes and greater than a dozen public nursing house advocates from Sauk, Portage, Lincoln, Marathon and Walworth counties met with state officers in January in Madison — a two-hour journey from Stevens Level in Portage County. 

It was the organizers’ first assembly after years of advocating in particular person counties.

“We have been working extra in our personal little yard, the place now we’re branching out to say, ‘Hey, we want assist from the state,’” Nancy Roppe mentioned.

The organizers rehearsed questions in a resort convention room earlier than assembly with officers on the Division of Well being Companies and the Workplace of the Secretary of State.

The state can block particular person gross sales primarily based on a purchaser’s monetary instability or poor previous efficiency. However the state can’t power a county to maintain its services.

It doesn’t matter what occurs in Portage County, Roppe considers all of her effort price it. Delaying the sale this lengthy issues for residents who’ve relied on the nursing house lately.

Final 12 months she obtained a reminder of that affect within the mail: a card from a former neighbor whose late husband Paul spent his remaining years on the Portage County Well being Care Heart. If not for the power, she couldn’t think about the place he would have ended up, the neighbor wrote.

“If we did nothing else, there was a spot the place Paul acquired the very best care in his final days,” Roppe mentioned.  

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