Sterling House of Longmont

I worked here for 9 months, and finally left because I was not willing to watch 1 more resident die a painful death because a few QMAPS, decided to withhold pain medication for hospice residents. QMAPS are not allowed to make those decisions but they did. They would not even call hospice to discuss why they felt the medications should not be given. This has been reported to the state by at least 4 people. FOOD: filthy kitchen, bugs, mice and the most of the residents complain about how bad the food tastes. Constantly running out of coffee,juices, creamer, etc changing decaf for regular. LAUNDRY: no matter the size of the load that needs to be washed it is all put in one load, whites, darks, it doesn't matter. Clothes don't get clean. STAFF: 2 people on duty during the evening and overnight shifts for a place that has 40+ ROOMS. We have a list of nightly duties, the only resident care for over night shift was bed check every 2 hrs. the rest of our time was spent cleaning. This is crazy. Many residents would get up and wander, maybe frightened, maybe just having a bad dream, maybe sick etc. I wanted to work there because I went to work there thinking I'd be doing caregiving. No time for that to busy cleaning so we could get more residents. They have had at least 10 people leave in the time I was there. CLEANLINESS: People would have food, vomit etc on their carpets for weeks before it would get shampooed. People had cats there, and rooms smelled so bad you could hardly stand to go in. Bathrooms would have feces on the toilets where residents tried to clean themselves but couldn't. SAFETY: One resident loved being outside, except she didn't always realize when to come in and she suffered heat stroke more than once. She also went for a walk and was gone for several hours before anyone noticed. We had many falls, we had residents that threatened both staff and other residents.

by shelley fox, Jul 2012