St. Luke’s Lutheran Care Center in Blue Earth was recently named a five-star nursing home facility but has been offering service to fewer new residents because of nursing staff needs.

There has been some concern in the local area about St. Luke’s Lutheran Care Center in Blue Earth cutting back on the number of residents they are able to serve.

“It is true that we are cutting back in the number of people we are able to have in the nursing home area of St. Luke’s,” says director of nursing, Becky Plocker. “But our overall numbers remain strong.”

Plocker explains St. Luke’s Lutheran Care Center started in 1963 and is operated by 16 local area churches, each church having a representative on the board of directors.

“At our peak, we operated with 180 resident beds,” Plocker explains. “These were for a variety of nursing assistance care needs.”

In the mid-1980s to 1990s, there was a demand for senior congregate living facilities, where residents would not necessarily need skilled nursing care.

“St. Luke’s added New Life Manor in the 1980s,” Plocker explains. “It has 24 apartments and is a HUD facility, where residents pay rent according to their income. They receive a noon meal and just a little housekeeping.”

Sometime in the 1990s, it was decided to add Southview Estates to the St. Luke’s campus. It has 24 apartments and they are rented out at market value. There is a noon meal served and light housekeeping, emergency pull cords in each room, and some other amenities.

“We had an assisted living wing inside St. Luke’s itself, back in the 1990s, too,” Plocker adds. “It was called Friendship Lane and had 14 rooms. It served residents with an increase need for care, such as bathing, and meals.”

Then in 2007, Friendship Court was added to the campus, with 28 apartments. It was filled to capacity right away, with some of the residents coming from Friendship Lane, which reverted back to being nursing home rooms. The growth trend continues to be in the assisted living area, with those residents receiving meals, help with bathing or dressing as needed and monitoring medicines.

“We had 150 beds in the nursing home in the 1990s,” Plocker says. “But we reduced to 120 beds back then.”

A year ago in November, the nursing home closed nursing station No. 3 and went down to 88 beds. This past summer, the decision was made to go to 75 beds.

“It is a matter of getting enough qualified nursing staff to maintain the quality of service to our residents that we strive for,” Plocker says. “But it is also because we have a large number of residents in our other St. Luke’s areas.”

She says that the 75 beds in St. Luke’s is still above the state average of 67 residents in nursing homes across Minnesota.

“And, if you take the 75 beds in the nursing home, the 24 apartments in New Life Manor and the 24 apartments in Southview Estates and the 28 apartments in Friendship Court, you see we still have a large number of residents here at St. Luke’s,” she explains. “And that still translates into the need for a lot of staff.”

St. Luke’s is not alone in their need for additional nursing staff. Plocker says that across Minnesota, there are currently 2,900 job openings for staff at nursing home and assisted living facilities.

Plocker says she is proud of and grateful for the staff St. Luke’s has. Some of them have been with the facility for 15, 25, 30, even 40 years.

“Our staff is dedicated and strives to do the best we can for all of our residents,” Plocker says. “Our motto is providing ‘resident-centered care’ here at St. Luke’s.”

And, it is obvious they are succeeding at that goal. St. Luke’s Lutheran Care Center was recently named a five-star nursing home facility and it is not the first time they have received that designation.

“I know there are people out in the community who wonder what’s wrong at St. Luke’s, and I want them to know we are still a caring nursing home facility,” Plocker says. “I know some are concerned when they can’t get their loved one moved into here, and we feel bad about it. But we need to be able to provide proper care and that means having the staff to do it.”

Plocker adds that St. Luke’s Lutheran Care Center will continue to provide comprehensive long-term health care services to the community, with adequate staff to residents ratio.