Dosher Memorial Hospital trustees want to sell the state license for its Dosher Nursing Center, the hospital announced Wednesday in a news release.

When the license is sold and the nursing facility separates from the hospital, Dosher Memorial in Southport will be left with just its 25 staffed acute-care beds, hospital spokesman James Goss said.

The decision was reached after a board study committee solicited input from other trustees, families of nursing center residents, physicians and community leaders in the Southport area, the release stated.

The 64-bed Nursing Center costs the hospital about $1 million per year, according to the release. Dosher officials say this operating loss is due to two factors: low government reimbursement for critical access hospitals like Dosher that have nursing centers and Dosher center’s lack of space for rehabilitation services.

“This expense would remain even if Dosher were to spend millions to try to upgrade the current facility,” the release stated, adding that investing $3 million-$5 million to upgrade the nursing center was one option the trustees considered but rejected.

Goss said the trustees estimate the sale of the license will bring between $600,000 and $1.6 million.

As a condition of purchase, the entity buying the license will be required to keep the new nursing center in Smithville  Township or within five miles of it so that the center will continue to serve south Brunswick County residents. It would also be required to continue to employ the current nursing center staff, Goss said.

The decision to sell the license comes at an interesting time. Several months ago the state approved the addition of 300 skilled nursing beds for Brunswick County, and five entities have filed applications for skilled nursing facilities, according to Goss, quoting an article that appeared Sept. 16 in the State Port Pilot.

Those competing proposals, according to the Southport newspaper, come from:

• Liberty of Brunswick, for a 110-bed facility in Town Creek township;
• Leland Health Holdings for a 40-bed expansion of Leland House;
• Brunswick Propco Holdings and Brunswick Opco Holdings for an 80-bed facility in Calabash;
• The Brunswick Community and Brunswick AL Properties for a 110-bed nursing home at Sunset Beach; and
• Arbor Landing at Ocean Isle Beach for a 132-bed facility in Shallotte.

One possibility is that one of those operators might opt to purchase the Dosher license and include its 64 beds in a revised proposal for a facility, Goss said.

Dosher Memorial’s CFO Dan Porter will soon publish a notice of the sale, which will include a Request for Proposal for the license purchase, according to Goss.