Let me start off by saying that this group home is owned by investors and not by a private individual. The nurse who runs it, Ann, is an employee of the investors and not the owner.
My 93 year old dad was hospitalized for pneumonia and could no longer take care of himself afterwards. He needed help standing and walking with his walker, along with basic life skills like bathing himself and toileting. I chose to put him at Nurse's Assisted Living because it was run by a nurse and they said they would work with him on his physical therapy to try to get him as close to where he previously was.
When he first got there, they had two very good caregivers. They really knew their stuff and took very good care of my dad. He always looked clean and together. I visited him every day and saw the care he was being given.
After about 6 weeks, my dad contracted COVID. I was grateful that he didn't have to go to the hospital and they were able to take care of him at the home. The one downfall was that he declined even more and was no longer able to stand or walk on his own. He required a two person assist and I was told by Ann that he was breaking the staff's backs. Shortly after my dad was out of quarantine, they lost both of their good caregivers and that was when things took a turn.
Every day that I went there, I combed his hair and shaved his face because it wasn't being done anymore. I noticed that his hair looked greasier each day I went there. When I asked him if he had a shower that day, he would say that he didn't. He was scheduled for showers on Sunday's and Tuesday's, but we would take him for the day on Sunday, so it wasn't being done that day. I would have to reposition him in his wheelchair every day because he was always slouching. He was also losing a lot of weight and he would ask me not to let him die in that place. Then we had a neurologist appointment that required him to take off his shoes and socks. There was a huge black blister, about two inches in diameter on the heel of his foot. I thought Ann knew about it and didn't want to worry me. About ten days later, he was at our house and I was giving him a sponge bath because he hadn't been bathed in a while. Not only did he have that blister, but he had another pressure sore on his ankle. A couple of days later, the nurse contacted me and told me they had noticed the blister and the sore while giving him a shower. I told her that the blister and the sore had been there for a while. She claimed she had known about it and was treating them. The next day I gave a 30 day notice. I no longer felt comfortable with him being there. Over the next couple of weeks, he got even more sores on his legs.
I took my dad out of Nurse's Assisted Living ten days earlier than my notice and put him in a group home that is owned by a Romanian family. I asked Ann if she could give him a shower the day before he left and she refused. She said that I was paying the new place and they could do it. The fact of the matter was that I was still paying her for ten days that he wasn't going to be living there. One of the last days he was at Nurse's Assisted Living, we had a wound care nurse come to the house to start treatment. She told me that she was going to report this to Adult Protective Services because she hadn't seen anything this bad before.
I still continue to visit him every day. He has been at the new place for six months and is doing great. He has gained weight, gets showers three times a week, his hair is combed, is clean shaven every day and has a much better outlook. He even smiles and laughs on occasion, which he didn't do before. I feel that they truly care about him at the new home. The blister on his foot will take a long time to heal, but has gotten much smaller, and he has two sores left on his leg from the original eight.
I put him at Nurse's Assisted Living based on the 5 star reviews and having a nurse on duty. Had I known it was owned by investors, he wouldn't have gone there. I realized later that some of those reviews might have been written by the nurse herself.
