Boston community and lawmakers call for investigation into nursing home set to close in July
MISSION HILL - A rally was held on the front lawn of a Mission Hill nursing home on Friday, where community members, staff and lawmakers called for the state to investigate the facility and keep it open.
The Edgar P. Benjamin Healthcare Center is scheduled to close in July.
People at the rally said the nursing home's administrator used the nursing home for his own gain, putting the facility and its residents in harm's way by allegedly mishandling funds. They're calling for an investigation and for an receiver to be appointed to dig deeper into the books.
The Edgar P. Benjamin Healthcare Center has been a part of the community for nearly 100 years and now serves mainly Black and Brown residents in need of long-term care.
"We believe that residents are at significant risk of transfer trauma," said Sen. Liz Miranda (D-2nd Suffolk District). "We know that residents who are displaced from their long-term care facilities will likely, and I know this firsthand, experience functional decline, increased loneliness and isolation and more hospitalizations and falls, or maybe even worse. We can do more and we should do more, to keep this facility open."
If the facility can't stay open, advocates are asking the state for more resources through the transition of care.
WBZ TV reached out to the administrator of the center but did not hear back.