Nick Propps

Review of Asbury Methodist Village

I am not big on writing online reviews especially ...

I am not big on writing online reviews especially when they are negative but since we relied on reviews to make our choice for a family member, I feel it is important to share what we personally experienced since I believe our experience could be indicative of how others may be treated and could seriously affect others and their loved ones. We personally had a bad experience with the Wilson Health and Rehab facility. This review pertains to the Wilson Health Care side, not the long term residential or assisted living. I have heard great things about those facilities which made us even more surprised at the care we received in the Wilson facility. I also want to mention that we tried repeatedly to work with the staff and management directly and felt the response was significantly lacking to put it nicely. We ultimately had to relocate our loved one to another facility where the attention to detail was much improved.

Part of the issue I believe stems from their sales approach to wanting to acquire patients. The sales staff is very friendly and said yes to everything we asked. We asked if special dietary needs could be accommodated since that was a critical part of care in our situation and were told - absolutely! They failed miserably to address the dietary concerns. Our loved one also kept running out of drinking water. We would find her showing signs of dehydration and needing water. We repeatedly asked that they get her setup with a pitcher instead of the small cups they would provide since she would drink a cup and have to wait extended periods for staff to check on her later in the day for a refill. They told us they would not provide a pitcher since they were afraid patients might use a pitcher in an ice machine causing a germ transfer risk....we went out and purchased a pitcher for her to be able to have a supply of water. I have never seen a hospital type setting like the Wilson Facility without a way to keep patients hydrated! It was one snafu after another with staff bringing the incorrect foods and time and time again we would speak with them and remind them about the sensitivity of the diet plan. The next day it would start all over again with the wrong foods being delivered to the room. We alerted management and felt as though they just didn't have the ability to properly manage the staff. Management blamed it on staff being independent contractors and turnover to a large extent and said they would keep trying to get the word out about the dietary issues. We found one helpful nurse who witnessed and recognized the issue and our ongoing attempts to get it corrected and she posted warning signs at the door about the diet; staff still violated the restrictions. Management appeared not to have a reliable way to broadcast patient messages to staff and it seemed management had to remember to run down each person and say - remember, no milk products to room 100 as an example. Then they would tell us they didn't get to one of the staff that day and they made the meal delivery so they would be sure to get the message to them. Then staff changed and it happened over and over. If a patient's allergies include milk, you should not deliver milk or products containing milk to their room where dementia patients especially are likely to consume them and get sick.

We tried having conferences with management but in my opinion they don't seem to want to accept responsibility. They passed the buck to other staff or issues. They are in charge - they run the facility and they need to find a better way to communicate patient allergies and dietary problems so they don't repeatedly deliver the wrong foods to patients. We were lucky to be able to have family at the facility as often as we did so we witnessed the problem and kept reporting and correcting it. Many families don't have the ability to have someone sit with their loved one and things like our issues would go unreported only to potentially cause a patient to have allergic reactions complicating their care. There is more to the story but space is limited by Google.