Letter to the Editor by Annette Frey

To the Editor:

As I sit down to write this, my heart weighs very heavily tonight. Today staff, residents and families learned that the Postville Good Samaritan Society nursing home will be closing its doors in the middle of November.

A corporation, Sanford Health Care, has decided that the bottom dollar and profit is more important than the lives of those who work or live there. Tonight residents are wondering where they will live and spend whatever days they have left, leaving behind memories of those they have become close to and shared many happy times with. Staff are stressing over what they will do for a job to support themselves and their own families, walking away from a “family” they were part of at the Postville Good Sam.

I have personally witnessed the dedication of the staff towards the residents as my mother-in-law spent the last few years of her life living there. They are family to each other, and for some residents the only family they may have had. They have celebrated holidays together, enjoyed many activities together, shared in the birth of grandchildren and great-grandchildren and in the death of loved ones, honored military Veterans, danced to the golden oldies music of their generation - for some  residents spinning around in their wheelchairs on the dance floor and others grasping a staff member’s arm to move maybe just a few steps, but feel the emotion of what they used to be able to do. Many of the staff have been there when our family members took their last breath and then prayed with us to bring comfort and peace.

A few years ago, the Postville Good Sam celebrated 50 years and I had the wonderful pleasure of being part of it. So many people gathered on that day to share in the memories of a vision of a skilled nursing home coming together in Postville. Past administrators and staff joined current staff and administration, family members and community members to toast together and honor a place that was home to so many for over 50 years.

As a member of the Postville Good Sam’s advisory board, we as a board were notified that  a corporation would be buying out the Good Samaritan Societies around the country. The Good Samaritan Society as a whole was in financial trouble and Stanford Health Care was its savior, bailing it out. However, as health care expenses increased and the COVID pandemic hit, long-term health care, specifically nursing homes, took the hit, and now we are seeing the effects from both.  Corporate America has decided that the lives of our most vulnerable are expendable and the employees are left on their own to fend for themselves. I worried that this day would come, and now it has.

Where do these people go from here? I wish I had answers for all of them, but I don’t know what the future holds. My only hope is that the Postville community and surrounding communities rally around everyone at the Postville Good Samaritan Society. We need to pray for them and what is to come. If you have attended the Harvest Ball at the home the last few years, you know that Tim the Music Man always ended the night with a particular song, everyone joining hands and dancing to “We Are Family”. They are family.

Annette Frey
Postville