HAUPPAUGE - Suffolk Executive Steve Levy has outlined the rationale for selling, leasing or closing the John J. Foley Skilled Nursing Facility—actions that he and members of the County Legislature are considering to address the county’s looming and significant 2009 budgetary shortfall.

 The county executive expressed confidence that patients at the nursing facility can get equal or better care at private facilities and that county taxpayers are paying to run a facility that is now obsolete.

“So much has changed since the 1800s, when the home was first developed as an almshouse for the poor, aged and destitute. It is a whole different world today,” Levy said. “It makes no sense to continue having Suffolk taxpayers pay for the care of Medicaid-eligible residents when the same level of care and service can be provided by private facilities at essentially no cost to Suffolk taxpayers.”

Levy, Stern and Dr. Chaudhry emphasized that the well-being of current nursing facility residents will remain paramount while a transition takes place. Levy provided assurances that, as part of the plan to sell, lease or close the nursing center, “each and every” resident at the Yaphank facility will either remain at the same facility or be placed safely elsewhere. “No one will be left out in the cold,” Levy pledged. “I would not allow that, and state regulations are in place to ensure that it would not happen.”

At the same time, the county executive said that area taxpayers will save some $12 million a year if the county gets out of the nursing home business—and that Suffolk could be eligible for up to $20 million in state grants were it to close the facility.