Strafford County to close Haidider House as freestanding hospice, move services into Riverside

Strafford County commissioners announced on April 2 that Haidider House, the county’s inpatient hospice, will close as a freestanding operation and some services will be moved into the county’s Riverside facility.

The county’s chair, speaking at the commissioners’ meeting, said the decision follows years of declining admissions and rising costs. “The county’s broke,” the chair said, summarizing the fiscal pressure that prompted the move. He told the meeting Haidider’s annual operating cost is roughly $4 million while Medicare payments account for about $800,000, leaving the balance to be covered by property tax revenue.

Commissioners said several factors converged to produce the shortfall: a post‑COVID shift that left more patients receiving hospice care at home, rising medication costs (the chair cited daily medication costs in the hundreds of dollars), the county’s reliance on jail contracts — including an ICE housing contract it described as worth roughly $9 million — and a Moody’s downgrade from A3 to Ba2 that will raise the county’s long‑term borrowing costs.

Why it matters: Commissioners said the county cannot lawfully operate in deficit and warned that continued losses at Haidider would exacerbate borrowing costs and pressure county services. The chair said the county has already exceeded local property‑tax caps and that without revenue repairs the county risks being unable to borrow or meet payroll in coming months.

Public reaction was immediate. Kobe Williams, who identified himself during public comment, urged the commissioners to preserve Haidider’s inpatient care, saying the facility offers specialized 24‑hour end‑of‑life support that hospitals and home‑based hospice do not replicate. “When hospice beds disappear, hospitals become the default location for end‑of‑life care,” he said. Several hospice workers and a social worker from Wentworth Hospice warned commissioners that closing Haidider will leave families and staff scrambling and could force more people to die at home without adequate clinical support.

What the county will do next: Commissioners said they will transfer as many services and staff as possible into Riverside and will renovate rooms to provide some hospice care there, though they acknowledged Riverside will not be identical to Haidider. The county set an April 18 closure date for Haidider House and asked employees to indicate by April 10 whether they want to move into open positions at Riverside; accrued leave payouts and personnel details will be addressed through required personnel processes.

Officials said they will also actively seek private‑sector partners — including local hospitals and hospice providers — to preserve access to inpatient palliative care and to explore other models. A formal presentation on the proposed Riverside hospice unit is being prepared for a future commissioners’ meeting.

The chair and other commissioners framed the decision as a fiscal necessity rather than a reflection on staff performance. “This isn’t the fault of the employees,” one commissioner said; the county repeated its intention to try to absorb as many staff as possible across the street at Riverside.

Next steps: The county will publish personnel decisions as allowed by law after initial nonpublic sessions and said it will keep the public informed about negotiations with potential private partners and the detailed plan for hospice beds at Riverside.