FARMINGTON – A public information session on Franklin Memorial Hospital’s so-called “swing bed” application will be held from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 29 in the hospital’s Bass Room.

The hospital proposes to reclassify 10 of its acute-care beds as swing beds or transitional care beds. A state Certificate of Need request is pending.

“When Parkview Nursing Home in Livermore Falls closed its doors last year, the area lost a tremendous community resource for short-term and long-term care needs,” according to hospital spokesman Dan Marois in a press release. If the request is granted, it would allow the hospital “to secure these beds to better serve our patients.”

The beds would serve patients who have recovered enough to leave the hospital but who are not well enough to return home. “This is the time when patients need skilled rehab care (swing beds is the jargon) to guide them to a more complete recovery,” Marois stated.

With the loss of Parkview, the only decision for the hospital is to keep such patients in the hospital setting with no reimbursement for service or send them out of the area.

If the swing-bed request were granted, it “would allow us to offer the service that local facilities cannot offer, and we would get reimbursed for the service. It would also give patients and families an option of care that is closer to their homes and community,” Marois stated.

The hospital currently employs occupational, physical and speech therapists, and does not anticipate adding additional staff to accommodate a swing-bed program. Its goal is to have the service operational by early 2004.

Questions about the application may be directed to Jill Berry Bowen at 779-2332 or Marois at 779-2468.

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