KITTERY, ME – This morning, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) began a string of visits to facilities across southern Maine that provide long-term care and support services to Maine’s aging and elderly populations with a tour of Durgin Pines in Kittery. King surveyed the Durgin Pines rehabilitation and long-term care homes and spoke with medical staff and residents. Later in the day, King will also visit Truslow Adult Day Care Center in Saco, OceanView in Falmouth, and Thorton Oaks in Brunswick.

“Finding affordable, high-quality long-term care can often be challenging for Maine seniors and their families,” Senator King said. “Thankfully, retirement communities and nursing homes around the state are stepping up to provide our aging population with world-class services. Given that the demand for these services is only expected to rise, it’s critical that we continue to develop and evaluate ways to meet this growing need in an affordable and responsible way.”

“We sincerely thank Senator King for taking the time to come see and experience for himself what quality nursing home care can and should be. Whether it is a high school student or a U.S. Senator, we relish every opportunity to have someone walk through our home and feel the care and compassion our amazing staff are providing to our elders in this state and country every single day,” Nick Bridges, Administrator of Durgin Pines said. “Every visitor to our home is an opportunity to tip the scale of public opinion in the correct and overdue positive direction that all too often has been shaped by pervasive incorrect assumptions or a lone personal experience 30 years ago, instead of the facts and realities of nursing homes today and what essential and irreplaceable position they hold in the welfare of our nation’s elderly. So, thank you to Senator King for giving us the opportunity to share with him first hand the important place on the health care continuum that nursing homes provide, both for our nation’s most fragile elders in long term care and our short term rehab patients.”

Situated between York and Portsmouth Hospitals, Durgin Pines offers 26 mostly private rooms for rehabilitation patients and 55 rooms for long term care residents. It employs a fully-licensed and certified professional staff, and also includes a 16 child Pre-School that provides an intergenerational program for all patients and residents.

More than 12 million Americans currently rely on personal assistance or long-term care services, and according to a 2013 report presented to the U.S. Senate by the Commission on Long-Term Care, that number is expected to more than double to 27 million by 2050.

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