Sherwood Oaks, the Mendocino Coast's only nursing home, appears to have a new lease on life after announcements made at a special Mendocino Coast Healthcare District board of directors meeting Feb. 17.
The 75-bed facility has been operating at less than half capacity in recent years due to severe staffing shortages, worsened by COVID, and was threatened with imminent closure as recently as December. The building and business were also in the final stages of a sale to a company controlled by Schlomo Rechnitz, California's largest nursing home operator and the focus of years of controversy and lawsuits over facilities operating with inadequate staff and sometimes without licenses.
Instead, said Mendocino Coast Health Care District director Jessica Grinberg last week, Sherwood Oaks is now in the final stages of purchase by Serenethos, a Hayward-based healthcare company that operates St. Anthony SerenEthos skilled nursing facility and SerenEthos Care Center there.
Grinberg said Serenethos stepped in after a local investor, who she did not name, came forward and offered to buy the Sherwood Oaks property as a last resort — if the former property owner, Richard Azevedo, would halt the sale to Rechnitz's company. Azevedo agreed after the guarantee was arranged, Grinberg said. Once Sherwood Oaks was on the market again, Serenethos expressed an interest and the new sale eventually was agreed to. Grinberg said final details are being worked out and the new owners would be available to explain their plans soon.
Grinberg said her understanding is Serenethos will be able to provide Sherwood Oaks with a new administrator and director of nursing, key components to continuing operations in the immediate future. She said the buyers are also clear on the extensive repairs needed on the property, including an earth subsidence under part of the foundation, a new roof, and various internal improvements on the 48-year-old building.
Grinberg said that, although she was involved in discussions that led to the sale, she was acting as a private citizen and not as a representative of the healthcare district. However, she and other directors said they favored the district staying involved in the overall issue of providing nursing care on the coast, which faces a severe shortage of healthcare workers along with the rest of the nation.
Grinberg said she and others in the community have been exploring possibilities for small, in-home care facilities from one to six beds that might operate as small care homes or even allow neighbors to take in a senior living alone. She encouraged people interested in such a concept to contact her through the healthcare district.
Longer-term options include various kinds of residential care facilities, although the low proportion of people with private insurance on the coast, on top of the already mentioned shortage of healthcare workers, have made such facilities financially unworkable so far.
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