Hyder House hospice to reopen July 1

April 07--DOVER -- Hyder House Family Hospice is reopening July 1 as part of Strafford County</location> government, less than a year after former owner Amedisys closed the Dover facility.

The county will operate the 14-bed inpatient hospice as a nonprofit affiliated with Riverside Rest Home, which is also county-run. The two sites will share some staff and resources to keep costs down, County Administrator Ray Bower said.

"This is exactly what we hoped," said Elaine Case of Barrington, co-chair of Friends of Hyder Family Hospice House, which last summer fought to keep the center from closing. "I have to be honest, I never had a doubt it would reopen."

Hyder House was the only inpatient hospice in Strafford County and one of a handful in New Hampshire when it closed last August. At the time, its for-profit parent company Amedisys announced the Dover facility and another in Concord weren't meeting financial expectations. Bower said the county tried to partner an existing hospice company to run the center but found no takers.

The county-run Hyder House will have an "open-admission concept" that allows patients to continue seeing nurses, doctors, chaplains and social workers from home-based hospice companies after they arrive at Hyder for end-of-life care. This creates continuity for the patient and reduces Hyder's staffing needs, Bower said.

The county owns the facility without a mortgage and does not need to pay property taxes, which substantially reduce overhead.

"Our cost to run it is going to be several hundred thousand dollars less than theirs," Bower said, referring to Amedisys. "The whole operation plan is different than what it was before."

Strafford County's 2015 budget approved last month includes $870,000 to run the facility for the second half of the year. Bower expects it will cost twice that much to operate for a full year.

The hospice is projected to pay for itself through patient services and reimbursements from Medicare and private insurance companies. Taxpayer money is not required to run the center or pay for it to reopen.

Case became familiar with the Hyder House when her mother spent her final days at the facility in 2013.

"Mom got to live the last three days of her life well. It's not a house of death; it was so peaceful for us to be with her," Case said Monday.

"I will forever be indebted to them," she added.

Case, who is supported by co-chair Dennis Lauze, hopes the friends group will fill an important niche at the hospice. In addition to volunteering and helping staff, the group also could help raise money.

"Whatever the county needs us to do, we're going to help them out," Case said.

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