Heartland Meadows opened its doors to the public for the first time Wednesday. Settled on a lush patch of farmland at the corner of Oregon Road and U.S. 169, the residential facility is designed to care for 12 individuals at a time and is currently welcoming new applications.
Heartland Meadows is a licensed Home Plus facility. According to Leslie Weir, the facility’s operator, the virtue of the Home Plus program is that it provides more intimate, individualized care for its residents than they would typically find at a traditional nursing home.
The center provides three levels of care, from basic needs — food service, bathing, administration of medicine — to more advanced nursing attention. Weir, along with owners Rick and Jalayne Nelson, will retain a small staff of aides at the home as well 24-hour licensed nursing care. “A big thing here is ‘aging in place,’” said Weir, who has worked as a registered nurse for 20 years. “Assisted living facilities will often get to the place where they can’t take care of [a resident] anymore…and so they send them away. Which means you have this person five ≠≠≠ and you get to know them and then you say, ‘I’m sorry, you’re going to have to go to a nursing home.’ How cruel is that? That’s why being able to age in place is so important to us.”
The “small house” philosophy at the core of Heartland’s mission is reduced to a portable form on the facility’s website: “We are a skilled nursing home situated in a residential setting.”
“Places always try to be ‘home-like,’” said Weir. “We’re not trying to be ‘home-like’ — we’re trying to be home. We’re trying to give people a better life. That’s what brought me into this work. … The three biggest plagues in nursing homes are loneliness, helplessness and boredom.” Heartland Meadows hopes to be an antidote.
The 12-room ranch-style home contains two wings of six rooms each, centered on a spacious, modern, open-plan kitchen, dining and living area. The facility is within view of the Allen County Regional Hospital and a short drive from downtown Iola. It offers views of the surrounding farmland from every room and a recreational area, including a fish pond, out back.
A few of Heartland Meadows’ rooms are already spoken for. Eighty-nine-year-old Betty Zink, the home’s first signee, was seated at the long dining room table, greeting community members who poured through the front door at Wednesday’s open house.
“Oh,” said Zink, thrilled to be moving from her current nursing facility to her own room at Heartland Meadows. “I’ve been a long time waiting for this!”
For more information on Heartland Meadows or to schedule a tour call 620-228-5200 or visit heartlandmeadows.org.
