Signature Healthcare Of Ormond 1

This is a statement of my observations of my father's care during his stay at Signature Healthcare of Ormond Beach. My father had a dismal experience between 12/31/10 and 1/2/11 when he was admitted for physical therapy rehabilitation following a hospital stay. He received appalling, unacceptable care that lacked empathy and respect, and put my father in a position that compromised both his dignity and comfort. The majority of the staff was cold, annoyed, unmotivated, unapproachable and defensive. He was moved to another facility two- days after his arrival at this wretched place.

1. There was not an automatic bed positioning adjustment that the patient can press to raise and lower the head and/or foot of the bed, but rather several manual cranks at the bottom of the bed. Since my father was bedridden it would be impossible to adjust the bed without assistance. We were told we could get an automatic positioner upon requests. After 2 days a four requests, we were told, "We usually only have those for the residents. We just don't have them lying around." One was never located.

2. There was no talk-back speaker in my father's room. When he pressed the call button, he would have to wait for a staff member to respond to the call. The average response time was 10 minutes (had my father used the call button for a medical emergency, he could have died before help arrived). Once a staff member arrived to inquire about the nature of the call, it took between 20 and 40 minutes, on multiple occasions, for them to respond to the request.

3. On the morning of January 1st, I pressed the call button and waited 10 minutes for a staff member to arrive. I told her my father needed a bedside commode to make a bowel movement and she responded, "If he needs to go right now he might as well use the bedpan because I'll have to go way over to the other side of the building to get a commode." I told her that no one wants to use a bedpan when they're capable of using a commode and to please retrieve a commode for my father. She began walking down the hall slowly with no sense of urgency. 40 MINUTES after the initial request my father was finally assisted onto a commode. Asking a human being to hold a bowel movement for 40 minutes after they ask for assistance is not only unacceptable, it's inhumane.

4. On my father's first night, he wet the bed and called for help. A staff member entered the room and stated, "Well, I see you pissed all over yourself." She left to get clean linens and did not return for over an hour.

5. On my father's second night, he pressed the call button and waited 10-15 minutes for a response. He told the staff member who finally arrived that he needed to urinate. He was told to just go in the bed and they would clean it up later. He did and they left him in urine the rest of the night.

6. Upon entering my father's bathroom on January 2nd, I was appalled to find soiled bed linens in the waste basket. The soiled linens were bulging out of the waste basket, covered in feces and urine. This was a biohazard.

Lastly, the staff that worked on December 31, 2010 through January 2, 2011, emitted an air of superiority, arrogance, and annoyance toward my father and our family. The staff was comprised of a group of women that formed a clique with one another that took a position of "us against them". If we made a request on my fathers behalf at the desk, they all looked at us with vacant expressions. As we walked away, we'd hear them whispering. This is the stereotypical facility you hear about on the news with regard to nursing home neglect and abuse. Shame on this facility and I pity the poor helpless residents who have no one to be an advocate for them.

by Verified visitor, Jan 2011