Arisu Cheddar

Review of North Florida Special Care Cen...

This is a tough call. There were a couple of care...

This is a tough call. There were a couple of caregivers that were amazing. They really went out of their way to help us out. Here's the problem: we shouldn't have been able to tell which staff were on by the state of our family member.

If the aforementioned angels were not on duty, I could expect my grandmother to be covered in old food, her wheelchair to be covered in food and debris, items to be missing, medication to be administered in whatever manner they felt like (or not at all), no bath given, hair not tended to, undergarment soiled, and bathroom dirty (which is so strange because she was basically bedbound at the end of her life... who's going in there to use the toilet?).

Before her inevitable decline, she was taken to the dining room only when someone could be bothered. Otherwise, she waited in her room until the lukewarm food was brought to her at a ridiculously late hour. Family members cleaned every other day because the staff could not be depended upon. Her room was one of the few that generally smelled nice, and was tidied. When we went around with grandma in her wheelchair, we would invariably see call lights flashing for minute after minute after minute, while staff milled in the hallways talking to one another. There were times that people were literally yelling "HELP ME... HELP ME..." during the entire time we were there in the halls, but no one went in to check on the resident. Maybe they always said that, but it was very unnerving.

When we called from offsite for emergency reasons (especially at the end, when we were trying to ensure she even ate or saw a doctor), the phone rang and rang with no answer.

I say this is tough because, unfortunately, from what I've heard it's the same everywhere. An employee's mother is temporarily at another facility and has been left to wet herself rather than get her call button responded to. Nearly every detailed review of these kinds of places talks about them being dirty and unresponsive. Medication and personal items go missing. This should not be the norm.