Nationwide Healthcare Services, residents meet to discuss plans in Milford
Milford Chronicle
June 29, 2017
by Jennifer Antonik
As plans unfold for Bayhealth’s new medical campus in southeast Milford, city council member Lisa Ingram Peel arranged a meeting between Ward 2 residents and Nationwide Healthcare Services to learn of updates and express concerns.
Attendees spilled out into the next room as seats quickly filled up inside the current Bayhealth Milford Memorial Hospital Boardroom before the meeting began Tuesday, June 20.
Ms. Peel called the gathering an “initial conversation” regarding the facility that is “in our backyards.”
Alan Levine, former director of the Delaware Economic Development Office, currently represents Nationwide Healthcare Services and recognized people around the room who have “played a big part in the transition of Milford Memorial that will be the Milford Wellness Village,” including Milford Mayor Bryan Shupe, Ms. Peel, Council member James Burk and City Planner Rob Pierce.
“I think Milford is really going places and I have to give a lot of that credit to the mayor whom I’ve known since he was a lot younger than he is now,” he joked.
Mr. Levine went on to describe the “cradle to grave” services to hopefully be provided such as a nursing home, daycare, skilled nursing services, small pharmacy primarily for the nursing home and complementary businesses such as a hair salon, which, he added, some believe to be therapeutic.
An assisted living component was also originally listed as a goal for the facility when Bayhealth announced the purchase of the building by Nationwide Healthcare Services in March. However, Mr. Levine said Tuesday night that it is not a consideration “at this moment.”
Plans, Nationwide Healthcare Services’ CEO Meir Gelley added, continue to evolve as Bayhealth progresses toward moving into its new facility in 2019.