Carol Furlong, vice president of operations at Harbor Homes in Nashua, wants people to imagine that they are ill and homeless.

Furlong, a medical services specialist at the Nashua-based agency that serves the homeless and other at-risk people, paints a scenario that is bleak and frightening.

Your home, she said, could be “under a bridge, in the woods, in a car or in an emergency shelter. Imagine not having a safe, clean roof over your head, no way to get the necessary treatment, and no caregivers to return home to after you’ve been discharged from the hospital.”

At an event Monday evening at the organization’s High Street location, Furlong painted a picture of both desperation and relief in the form of the state’s first medical respite center catering to the Harbor Homes clients.

About a hundred people gathered at Harbor Homes to celebrate the opening of the new center, named in honor of former state Sen. Peggy Gilmour, a Hollis Democrat seeking re-election, and her husband, Dr. David Gilmour, two longtime benefactors to area health care efforts.

The medical facility contains 11 beds in double and single rooms, bath facilities, a nursing station, refrigeration and storage, and access to a licensed kitchen and cafeteria.

Primary, behavioral and dental care along with other integrated specialty care services are available within the Harbor Care Health and Wellness Center.

David Gilmour described the respite facility Monday night as “a mini hospital for people who are not sick enough to require a full-size functioning hospital, but who are also not well enough to be in their home, which may be under a bridge, it may be in a shelter, or it may be in transitional housing, but it’s not a home.”

The home may be nonexistent, but the need for quality health care most certainly is, his wife said.

Deflecting attention directed at her and her husband, lauded throughout the evening for their work in with health issues, she said people associated with Harbor Homes “repeatedly identified where the holes in providing care, not only care, but living, for those who do not have a home like we have, particularly veterans.”

“It’s not that we stepped up,” she continued, “it’s just, how can we be supportive of yet one more important piece of this big part of care?”

Acknowledging the issue of providing health care for the at-risk and homeless, David Gilmour said, “There are a lot of people like that. There are millions of people with that status, and they get sick too.”

“This effort was started in the ’80s with a Robert Wood Johnson grant. Now there are 80-some-odd of these around the country,” he said.

The facility is mainly outpatient, but there are 11 beds for those who need 24/7 care.

“My guess is it will be about 70 percent to 80 percent full,” he said.

Peggy Gilmour said the facility is the right tool for the task at hand.

“To keep someone in the wrong setting – the acute care setting – while you’re struggling to find some kind of safety discharge plan, costs us all,” she said.

Her sentiments were reflected in Furlong’s remarks to the crowd at the event.

“We know that individuals including our veterans, who experience homelessness may often have serious acute and chronic health conditions. They may also struggle with mental illness and substance use in addition to physical illnesses. All of which can result in frequent emergency room visits and hospitalizations,” she said.

Said Furlong: “Medical respite provides for significant cost savings to hospitals, community health care providers and the general population.

“Currently, many individuals remain hospitalized beyond the stage of medically necessary treatment, because hospitals are not allowed to discharge individuals into homelessness,” Furlong added. “By admitting these individuals into medical respite, after a shorter stay at the hospital, we can prevent longer, unnecessary hospital stays.”

Studies have shown that emergency room visits, admissions and lengthy stays by the homeless “all go down when you have a medical respite system,” David Gilmour said. “This is a money saver. It just takes a lot of leadership to make it happen.”

After praising the couple for their accomplishments in local health care efforts, Harbor Homes president and CEO Peter Kelleher said, “Joining their names to the medical respite center was the perfect match.”

Nashua Mayor Jim Donchess said the decision to honor Peggy and David Gilmour is “certainly a very wise one, one that recognizes two people who have done probably more for Nashua and for our region than really anyone I can think of.”

Donchess began his address after asking for a moment of silence for Jacob Goulet, the Nashua high school student who apparently died after he somehow entered a hatch over the weekend that led into a city storm drain that accessed the Nashua River.

Don Himsel can be reached at 594-6590, dhimsel@nashuatelegraph.com, or @Telegraph_DonH.