Goodwin House Bailey's Crossroads

When my mother became very ill, she moved from her "independent-living apartment" at Goodwin House Bailey's Crossroads to the nursing-care floor (in the same building). After a time, which included hospital stays for operations, we attempted to hire nurses aides and an LPN from two different, reputable agencies to stay with my mother at night. GHBC seemed to do everything possible, short of barricading the entrance, to prevent the hiring of these outside aides. At first, rationalizations were offered for not hiring an aide: e.g. an aide would give my mother too much help and she would not learn to be independent. This made little sense, as, for instance, GH aides would wash my mother's face and brush her hair when she could and wanted to do these things for herself.

When we did finally make attempts to hire an aide from an outside agency, despite being repeatedly discouraged from doing so, Goodwin House set up ridiculous hurdles for these agencies. Unfortunately for my mother, the nursing facility was ultimately successful in keeping aides from outside agencies out. Both external nursing agencies told me that they had never had so much trouble in dealing with a nursing home and that they had the strong impression that they were deliberately being kept out. One very highly-recommended agency told me that they had never encountered such extreme roadblocks. Goodwin House did inform us that we could their hire their aides from their facility---for over double the going-rate for aides--$38 per hour versus $16 - $18 per hour for aides from the agencies. Various rationalizations were given for this one-hundred plus percent difference in hourly rates.

When I went myself to check on my mother at night, I was harassed by some of the staff. I witnessed neglect and ill-treatment of my parent. Several times, while I was still in the hallway---before I had even entered my mother's room, I heard her crying out for help--help that she indeed needed and if not give to her in a timely way, could have serious adverse effects on her health. One night, when I went to check on my mother, an aide came in the room and yelled at me to get out. She turned on the brightest lights in the room, yelled at me some more, then went over to my seriously-ill mother?s bed where my mother was soundly sleeping, and announced (yelled) her presence, startling my mother awake. Before my mother had a chance to fully wake up and get her bearings, the aide engaged in a standard procedure that would normally cause minimal discomfort at most. However, the aide was so rough that my mother, who is quite stoic, repeatedly cried out in pain. There was no justifiable reason for this rough treatment and causing my mother such pain. After this incident, staff members actually accused me of waking my mother up at night---claiming that was why she slept too much during the day. (Needless to say, they offered no explanation as to why she slept just as much during the day when I didn't check on her at night.)

The daytime behavior of some of the staff/administration was equally abysmal. including blocking access to my mother with blatant untruths and giving her poor care. For example, a nurse doing an assessment/checkup on my mother (who was ill and disoriented upon her return from a hospital stay for an operation) in my mother?s large, sparsely furnished single room, refused to let me in the room, despite the fact that my mother wanted me there, because, the nurse repeatedly claimed, "there wasn't enough room." After I questioned her about this, she changed her line to ?out of respect for my mother's privacy?--an equally nonsensical claim on a number of levels. When I was finally allowed in, the nurse then left the room---leaving the call button on the floor, the phone and water glass well out of my mother?s ability to reach, and the bed sheet pulled around my mother?s legs so tightly that she couldn't move them---this after the doctors and nurses at the hospital had given clear instructions that it was vital for my mother, because of her serious medical conditions, to be moving her legs. And, of course, my mother was clearly upset. Within a few hours of this incident, this particular nurse, along with another nurse from the facility, made a bizarre complaint about me: they claimed that I had supposedly ?slammed a door? and ?hit a wall.? On top of all of that, the director of nursing then threatened to bar me from visiting my mother.

(These false accusations and this threat were not made to directly to me. Instead, they were made to my already very-worried elderly father. This manipulative behavior by the staff was the last thing he needed to be dealing with: the added stress was clearly not good for his health.)

In my mother's room, the call button was often on the floor or placed in a location where my mother clearly could not reach it. The staff also claimed that my mother was at fault for not using the call button when she needed help. It also became apparent that even when she had managed to use the call button, she was not always attended to, particularly at night.

There was at least one very cold night where the heat didn't work and there were no spare blankets: my seriously-ill mother became very chilled for several hours. No attempt was made to notify my father, several floors above in their apartment, who could have brought down extra blankets.

The phone in my mother?s room often didn't work; the television often didn't work. I once found her shoes on the table she used for eating her meals. The food was clearly not as appetizing as that provided for the independent-living residents; some of it was pretty terrible. Apparently, GHBC has had a number of restaurant inspection violations.

Some of the patronizing and insulting behavior of some of the staff could be comical: When I brought my mother a cake for her birthday from a very nice French bakery, I was given unasked-for advice by my mother?s nurse about where I could get a better cake at another bakery.

Other incidents include several nights when my mother was extremely agitated, disoriented, and upset (after returning from another hospital stay that included another operation). It seemed that her intense anxiety and agitation could be caused or worsened by a breathing medication that she was being given at night that is well-known for this particular side effect. The nurse was resentful and sarcastic when I asked her several times over a couple of days to notify my mother?s doctor about my mother?s intense, and for her, unusual agitation and disorientation and to ask the doctor whether it could be due to the medication and if something could be done to help her. The nurse showed no sympathy or concern regarding these intense anxiety attacks. The attacks were painful to watch and the overt disdain and nastiness of the nurse made it much more difficult for me to help my mother.

My mother has a serious lung condition. There was construction going on directly outside the window in her room. On numerous occasions, I came into her room to find the window open, letting the dust from the construction directly into her room. I brought her a HEPA air purifier but it was often turned off. When she was moved to another room, we weren't allowed to turn the HEPA filter air purifier on until I got the permission of her outside doctor.

Being polite and respectful to the staff got me nowhere.

I did try talking to the ombudsmen about these problems but her response was to tell me about how much worse her parent's nursing home had been. While this was very sad, her response was neither helpful nor appropriate.

As my mother has gotten better (despite the place--she is someone with an enormously strong will to live) the staff?s behavior has largely improved---as she is able to recognize, remember, and relate to others what the staff is doing. However, some staff members still manage, in their own apparently passive/aggressive way, to harass her by repeatedly asking her why I don't visit her more often. I have had a nurse ask me, directly in front of my mother, why I don't visit her more often, like I used to.?

As described above, some staff and administrators appear to play worried family members against each other. They will be attentive and pollyannaishly "charming" when one family member is present (particularly if it is the family member with authority over care) and then behave badly when a different family member is present. There also appears to be a very clear preference for family members who are less observant and don?t ask questions.

The difference in quality of behavior of the staff at the hospitals my mother has stayed at (much, much better) and that of a substantial portion of the staff that I've encountered at this nursing facility is enormous.

GHBC appears to expend a very large amount of money and effort toward creating a good public image. They can be ludicrously pretentious about their supposedly "high" standards, which often seem to have more to do with being unduly rigid and controlling. They can make a show of concern and interest in regard to concerns and complaints, but as one independent- living resident told me, ?they don?t really care.? They seem more interested in appearances rather than genuinely concerned for the quality of life of the nursing residents.

I think one way to protect one's family member(s) from this type of abusive and egregiously manipulative behavior in a nursing care facility would be to find out, before the family member moves in, if staff and administrators would be willing to take polygraph tests in regard to their behaviors and actions when serious problems arise.

by Verified visitor, May 2010