A nursing home accused in 2005 of providing sub-standard care to seniors will close later this month, it was confirmed yesterday.

Pembroke Rest Home is expected to shut in less than two weeks, according to its manager Valerie Arorash. She said: "There is a tentative date for February 15. It's closed for extensive renovation. I don't even know if it's going to reopen.

"It's something that Government has handled. All the command comes from the Ministry (of Health). At some point they are going to demolish it. I don't know exactly when that's going to be."

Ms Arorash said staff had been given notice of the closure of the home, which includes a seniors' day centre, but she declined to answer further questions.

Health Minister Nelson Bascome has called a press conference for Monday to announce the decision. He said yesterday: "We will reveal all info on the Pembroke Rest Home on Monday afternoon."

An employee at the home, on Parsons Road, told The Royal Gazette: "The staff here are in the dark."

Shadow Health Minister Louise Jackson said it was time the facility was pulled down. "What took them so long? The conditions there have been so intolerable for so many years. It has a horrible history. It should have been pulled down a long time ago."

The home's closure leaves the Island with two Government-run rest homes for seniors and the extended care facility at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

Ms Jackson said she expected that the Pembroke residents would be moved to the new Sylvia Richardson Care Facility in St. George's.

The Department of Health took over administrative duties for Pembroke Rest Home from Pembroke Parish Council in December 2005.

Allegations had been made the previous month that residents were being neglected at the home. Staff wrote a letter to this newspaper claiming that insufficient funding had led to problems and that a full-time nurse administrator was needed.