At first I thought this home would be a great fit for my husband. It was clean and when I toured the home, the two caretakers I met seemed friendly. But as soon as we moved in it wasn’t long before I realized that all that was just for show.
Most of the residents in this home do not have an advocate. Most have just been dumped off and forgotten. So because of that they can be treated any which way without anyone holding them accountable. They are extremely rude to the residents. They don’t even have common courtesy when speaking to them. They force them to sit ALL day and if they try to get up and walk around they yell at them and force them to sit back down.
The only form of entertainment was a TV. The residents crave, real human interaction because they don’t get much at all.
When I found injuries on my loved one and I started asking questions out of concern, I was never given answers. They immediately took the stance that I was accusing them of something, when I was truly just asking from a place of concern wondering what happened.
Nothing and I mean NOTHING can be said or done unless it is ran through Vicky the Manager. Vicky was rude, mean and lacked any ounce of compassion. I can’t believe she’s in this field of caretaking. She makes you feel like your intruding even if you ask simple questions, normal questions.
They have 1 caretaker to 10 residents (except meal times). It causes lots of residents to be ignored.
Let’s talk about mealtimes. They serve food at early hours. 5:45 am for breakfast, 11:00 for lunch and then 4:00 for dinner. I visited frequently at 4:30 pm and they would have already eaten and they even had some residents in bed right after dinner by 5:00 pm. They did this because of the caretaker ratio. There are only 2 caretakers for the overlapping dinner hours, and if they needed help getting someone to bed, they had to do this early. Otherwise, there would only be one caretaker and she couldn’t lift or handle many of the folks by herself. They never used a hoyer lift.
The caretakers are so busy cleaning and crushing meds that they spend very little, if any time, actually caring for residents. If they do assist someone then that means the others are left completely alone.
They tell you that they can call upon the Manager if they needed help so having one caretaker works out. It doesn’t. I saw so many times where they had to sacrifice care just to survive the moment.
The owner of the home is never around. She relies on the Manager Vicky to handle everything and she believes everything she tells her. While I realize it’s important to trust your Manager, it’s also irresponsible to never check up or hold accountability to what is being said. One time after I complained about roadblocks to communicating about my husbands care, the owner admitted to the fact that Vicky’s communication style is like, “taking out a baseball bat and hitting others over the head with it”. She doesn’t deny she’s mean and rude YET they just allow it!!! The Manager Vicky is willing to work and be oncall 24/7 so the owner just puts up with her rude behavior because she doesn’t want to be stuck without a Manager that is devoted to working 100 hours a week. It’s hard to find Managers who don’t have a life outside of work. So they just allow it. Day after day. This way they don’t have to do any of the hands on work required.
After I witnessed things and begin to see unexplained injuries, I called a meeting with our Hospice team, the owner Jennifer Story and Vicky to discuss my concerns and to ask how they would be caring for him as he progressed in his illness. I saw first hand the dysfunction in the relationship between owner and Manager. I knew things would not be improving. I removed my husband immediately. I was able to place him in a loving, kind, peaceful home that did an excellent job at his care. Very different from my experience at this place.