MOTION PICTURE FUND NURSING HOME TO ADMIT NEW RESIDENTS
Los Angeles Times
January 25, 2012
by Richard Verrier
Three years after a controversial decision to close Hollywood's best known nursing home, the Motion Picture & Television Fund has reversed course and said it would immediately begin admitting new residents to the Woodland Hills facility.
The decision marks a victory for residents and their families who waged a highly public campaign to fight the fund's decision in January 2009. Many residents accused the charity of losing sight of its mission to take care of entertainment industry workers and refused to leave, hiring an attorney to block evictions.
At the time, the fund's board members said they had no choice because its facilities were losing millions of dollars and threatening the charity with bankruptcy. On Wednesday, however, MPTF officials said the nursing home's finances had improved under new management, enough at least to justify admitting residents.
The board tapped former Panavision Chief Executive Bob Beitcher this summer to replace David Tillman, who resigned as head of the fund in February 2010 after bitter clashes with residents over his handling of the planned closure.
"I would give Bob Beitcher and his management team really a lot of credit for coming in and getting our house back in order, which it needed,'' said Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive of DreamWorks Animation and MPTF Chairman. "The results of it are that we can very comfortably expand our capacity."
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Motion Picture & Television Fund's Long-Term Care Unit Won't Shut Down
Daily News Los Angeles
January 25, 2012
by Susan Abram
WOODLAND HILLS - In what is being called a real-life Hollywood happy ending, the Motion Picture & Television Fund announced Wednesday it will be able to save its long-term care unit from closure and open to new residents as well as those who were moved out in 2009.
The news was received with applause from some relatives of patients at the home who fought to keep the long-term care unit from shuttering. After years of demonstrations outside the facility, fingerpointing and even threats of lawsuits, some of those same relatives on Wednesday credited the MPTF board for re-examining its decision.
"I think it's a real game-changer for us today," said Bob Beitcher, president and CEO of MPTF. "I think it says a lot to the industry of our commitment to our mission. There were a lot of people wondering what was going on with the MPTF, and I think this is a good time for them to get off the sideline and support us as volunteers, and as donors."
The landmark nursing home and hospital in Woodland Hills that has served Hollywood stars, camera operators, set designers and others for decades was set to be closed after board members announced in 2009 an anticipated $10 million-a-year shortfall. Services had been gradually reduced and patients were transferred to other facilities.
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MPTF 3 YEARS LATER: Longterm Care Remains Open, But Patients Down to 29
The Wrap
by Brent Lang
January 13, 2012
Three years after announcing a controversial plan to close its money-losing longterm and acute care facility, the nursing home at the Motion Picture and Television Fund’s Woodland Hills campus has defied the odds to remain open.
Thanks to a sustained grassroots campaign from Saving the Lives of Our Own, a collection of residents and their families, the MPTF board has abandoned plans to the shutter the home, pledging to keep the facility open if it can find a partner.
However, the nursing home is a shadow of what it once was. At a busy facility that once offered the “gold standard” in comprehensive care for the aged and frailest members of the Hollywood community, there are only a handful of residents who remain behind.
The number of patients has dwindled to 29 from the nearly 140 people who called the facility home when the closure was first announced, officials say. Some residents moved in the wake of the closure announcement, others succumbed to old age and disease.
“As the residents of the longterm care unit are dying, the mattresses are rolled up and the lights are turned out, but no one new is coming in,” Richard Stellar, a blogger for TheWrap and a member of Saving the Lives of Our Own, said. “It’s a war of attrition.”
The result is a kind of limbo. Long-term care has not closed, but with the MPTF management loath to admit new long-term patients until it secures a partner to share the burden of keeping the facility operating, the doors to the nursing home remain closed to new residents.
Administrators at the MPTF say that they have learned their lesson and that they are fully committed to keeping longterm care as part of their offerings.
“We heard the industry’s reaction and I think we responded to it,” MPTF Chief Executive Officer Bob Beitcher told TheWrap. “The unit is stable and we believe we are continuing to provide excellent care.”
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Motion Picture Home Plans Hit a Snag on Capitol Hill
Los Angeles Times
by Richard Verrier
January 4, 2012
A plan to help secure the future of Hollywood’s most famous nursing home has been stalled by gridlock in Washington, D.C.
After months of negotiations, the Motion Picture & Television Fund is close to finalizing a deal with Kindred Healthcare of Louisville, Ky., to invest in and provide long-term acute care services at the Woodland Hills complex that includes the nursing home.
Under the proposed agreement, Kindred would invest $10 million to remodel an existing hospital building and would lease hospital and rehabilitation beds from the fund. That would give much needed revenue to the fund, which provides various social and healthcare services to entertainment industry workers.
But the signing of the deal, which was originally expected to be completed by the end of 2011, has been delayed by uncertainty over whether Congress will extend a moratorium on the building of long-term acute care facilities.
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