Joyful Homes III

Do not consider this place for your loved ones. Our mother was only there for six days and it ended in a total nightmare. When the Com for Care personal care home that our mother had been happily living in for the last six months announced they were closing their location, we contacted “A Place for Mom” placement service which recommended a personal care home that was just opening called “A Joyful Home,” in Houston, Texas, owned and managed by Edith Egwu. After our mother, who is not memory impaired, but is frail, was assessed by Ms. Egwu, we decided to move her into the home on November 1, 2014. We were told by Ms. Egwu that our mother was the first resident in the home. Over the course of two days, it quickly became apparent that Ms. Egwu (who was the only one working at the home most of the time), was not at all attentive as a caregiver. She left our mother on her own in her room without checking on her for the majority of the day, each day. The only thing that she did without being asked was to provide her with three meals a day. She did not provide towels or wash cloths, which we’ve since learned personal care homes are required to do by license law. Although it wasn’t evident on our first visit, we soon began to notice how dirty the place was. We also observed that Ms. Egwu did no cleaning during the six days that our mother was in the home. While she was never abusive to our mother, our mother often heard Ms. Egwu screaming and yelling at people over the phone. One evening, my mother needed help and went to look for her and found her in another room pacing back and forth yelling at someone over the phone. We had pretty much decided that we were going to start looking for another place, when on day 4 our mother began feeling like she was coming down with a cold. She’s had pneumonia in the past, and is supposed to use a nebulizer when she feels respiratory problems coming on. When we told Ms. Egwu that she needed help with her nebulizer treatments, Ms. Egwu told us that she did not feel comfortable doing providing those, and that she had decided our mother was “too sick” for her to take care of, and that we needed to find another place for her. She offered to refund the balance of our monthly fee, which was $3200, when we moved out. The next morning (day 5), we decided we would take our mother to the E.R. to make sure that she wasn’t coming down with Pneumonia. We told Ms. Egwu that we had begun looking for another place. Although her lungs were clear, our mother was admitted to Memorial Southwest Hospital overnight for observation, and we found another facility to move our mother to. On November 7th, we went over to tell Ms. Egwu that we had found a place to move her, and we were there to start packing up her things to come back and get later. Ms. Egwu was not there, but the woman who was covering for her became alarmed that we wanted to pack up, and she barred us from the door of our mother’s room. We tried to explain to her that we weren’t going to be taking her things at this time (not that it should have mattered as everything in the room belonged to our mother, and we had also paid, in full, for the month of November when she moved in). We ended up having to call the police who told Ms. Egwu that she had to let us get our mother’s possessions, and that she needed to reimburse us for the balance of the monthly fee. The police left, we began packing up our things, and called movers to come while we were there, because at this point, we were not leaving our mother’s possessions in the home. We asked repeatedly for our mother’s meds, and Ms. Egwu told us that when we were ready to leave she would give them to us. When we were all ready to go she refused to give us the meds (on what basis she was refusing to give them to us we have no idea). We ended up having to call the police out a second time, and they made Ms. Egwu hand over the meds. We asked Ms. Egwu to refund the balance of the monthly fee which amounted to $2453, but she refused to acknowledge our request. When we got the meds home we discovered that our mother had run out of one of her prescriptions while under her care, and Ms. Egwu had never notified us of this. I know if you’re reading this you probably think we are leaving something out of the story, because, the whole thing makes absolutely no sense. Ms. Egwu asked us to leave saying she would refund our money. We did what she asked, and then she behaved bizarrely and irrationally (I’ve left out all the screaming and yelling and what a horrible scene the whole thing it was). We continually asked for the balance of the monthly fee, and she just refused to address it. I will also add, that there was never any contract, which of course, was a total red flag, and I will admit to our being totally remiss in moving our mother into a personal care home without a contract. We have since learned that a licensed care facility must present you with a contract as per license law in the state of Texas. Our only conclusion, at this point, is that Ms. Egwu is operating on a shoestring, and trying to do the work herself, because she’s just getting this business going. She is definitely not providing the kind of care for the residents that she says she will on her website. During the course of a few days, she decided that our mother, who is completely lucid with no memory impairment (as opposed to someone who is memory impaired, or completely disabled and is unable to ask for anything for themselves) was going to be too much trouble for her. It is also possible that when Ms. Egwu offered to refund our money she was counting on it taking a lot longer for us to find a place and didn’t think that she would need to refund such a large amount. It seems by her behavior that Ms. Egwu has some kind of mental illness or personality disorder, and is not fit to be in a caregiver position. I will end by saying that we have learned from another placement agency that Ms. Egwu has gone out of business two times in the last five years. We have reported Ms. Egwu to the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services. Who knows what will happen with that, but if you’re considering this place you need to keep looking.

by Stephen Smith, Nov 2014

An inspection of Joyful Homes occurred on 07/18/2007 . There were 4 violations of state standards cited.

by Verified visitor, Jun 2008