Last Thursday, it was announced, suddenly and without any real warning, that River’s Bend Health Care in Burlington was shutting down, due to financial reasons.

The facility said it was unable to make payroll and was closing that day.

River’s Bend did not give the expected 90-day notice to the Ohio Department of Health that is needed in this situation.

As a result, officials with the agency had to undertake a rapid mobilization to relocate the nursing home’s 55 patients to safe and secure facilities.

Working with the Ohio Department of Aging, Medicare and remaining staff of River’s Bend, who were there without pay, they were able to move the residents, with only 14 remaining within 24 hours, and the remainder moved by Friday’s end.

We thank and commend all who took part in this effort and were able to act on such short notice and help those who were in a fragile situation..

And we hope our state officials are able to get to the bottom of just how this incident occurred and ensure a repeat does not occur.