Kenosha Estates Rehab & Care Center will close its doors and lay off 65 employees, the nursing home notified the state this week.
The for-profit operator of the 97-bed facility at 1703 60th St. in Kenosha plans to begin laying off employees in mid-April, when it winds down operations, according to the notice filed with the Department of Workforce Development. Permanent closure of the facility is expected to occur in May. Kenosha Estates doesn’t cite a reason for the closure, and representatives with the facility couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Thursday.
A national nursing home database from ProPublica says Kenosha Estates has 42 residents.
The facility received one of five stars from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which rates nursing homes’ performance on health inspections, staffing and quality measures. It received a total of nine citations on its most recent health inspection, conducted April 2021. The U.S. average is 8.1, and the state average is 6.7.
Its total number of nurse staff hours per resident per day was 2 hours and 11 minutes, compared to the national average of 3 hours and 46 minutes and the state average of 3 hours and 55 minutes, with higher numbers being considered better.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated already existing challenges within the long-term care industry — staffing shortages in particular. Between 2016 and 2021, 41 nursing homes in Wisconsin closed.
