MALONE — Alice Hyde Medical Center Nursing Home and Franklin County Nursing Home may merge into one 165-bed facility, including 30 assisted-living beds.

The hospital recently received a $2.9 million state grant to study how a merger might work between its 75-bed facility and the county’s 80-bed Nursing Home.

The county has consistently bailed out its Nursing Home, contributing nearly $3.9 million to balance its budgets since 2004, said County Manager James Feeley.

And because that burden can’t be continually placed on taxpayers, “all viable solutions on how best to provide long-term, skilled-nursing care must be examined,” he said in a news release.

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Feeley said the hospital’s chance to get grant funding through the State Department of Health, to look at merging under the Health Care Efficiency and Affordability Law for New Yorkers (HEAL NY 8) project, “is an opportunity of consolidation and proper alignment of long-term-care facilities that the county cannot pass on.”

He said the partnership “is a natural outgrowth of the county’s need to find the most economical and viable solution to long-term care in northern Franklin County.”

Medical Center officials were equally enthusiastic about the possible new facility, which would be owned and operated by Alice Hyde.

“We are extremely pleased to be a recipient of a HEAL NY 8 grant,” said John Johnson, president and chief executive officer. “Coordinating a unified long-term-care approach in Franklin County requires ongoing investigation and evaluation.

“Our concern and priority is making sure that the frail and elderly in our community have access to high-quality nursing-home care. Equally important is not jeopardizing the financial stability of the Medical Center.”

He said financial consultants “are reviewing all possible scenarios that may affect the feasibility of this project.

“We are anxious to move forward, but there is much work to be done first.”

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