Saunders House

Good morning As I continue my journey through aging I reflect on the beautiful life I‘be lived . However because of a recent unexpected illness I had to come to Saunders Rehabilitation and Nursing Home . What started out as a pleasant experience has turned into a nightmare. With the takeover of a new corporation we the patients are experiencing a decrease in staffing, lack of care , cut back in supplies, low quality food, and the creation of a hostile environment which has created a high turnover of staff . More patients are falling because of unanswered call bells. Stay away.

This review is specifically about the care received for rehab and dementia care for my mother who had a hospital stay at Lankenau and needed rehab. She also has mid-stage dementia. While the actual rehab services appeared to be great (physical and occupational therapy), the actual care was terrible and Saunders House itself seemed to us to be very poorly run. Basically, fighting with them for my mother's well-being was more exhausting than taking care of her myself. There are some people who truly stand out: [name removed] the social worker is one. There are some who probably do care, but don't have the energy or commitment (not sure which) to take effective action. [Name removed], Director of Nursing, comes to mind. Then there are many who either should not be in their jobs, or are simply non responsive. [Name removed], the 3 - 11 nursing supervisor, and [name removed], one of the nurses on the dementia unit, fall into the former category due their extreme rudeness and combativeness when asked questions or presented with valid problems. [Name removed], Director of Quality of Life, falls into the latter category: she simply does not respond. Why is that a big problem? Because she is in charge of everyone else. They also have a reckless and apparently inept psychiatric nurse practitioner named [name removed] who prescribed excessive amounts of a deadly drug for my mother without my permission. If my mom had not been transferred to another hospital, I never would have known. They have no qualified psychiatrist, which is essential on a dementia unit. So what else happened to justify all these comments? They left my mother lying in urine stained and soaked sheets. Covered the urine with some blankets and put her on top of them. They could not get her diet straight, which is a matter of life and death for her. They left her waiting to go to the bathroom for 35 minutes because "the staff was tied up in the dining room." When she called out, they did not check to be sure she was okay because "her records said she sometimes had that behavior." When there was an urgent situation with my Mom, they were unable to get the appropriate doctor to see my Mom within two hours after which it turned out she had "left the building and won't be back" for two days. We observed no sense of urgency on behalf of their patients' needs, but, rather an overt patronizing and snotty attitude towards family who expressed concerns. Most critical is that internal communication is terrible. Things that are communicated to Social Work, for example, don't make it to the nurses who are on the front lines. Issues that you bring to a manager are not communicated to those who need to address them. And most frightening of all, they don't have wireless phones. So there are long blocks of time when they don't answer the phone. Not good if a doctor or some other person has to get through in an emergency. All-in-all, Saunders House as a whole reminds you of the fact that we as a society do not make senior citizens a priority, and they are very surprised when someone expects that they should apply the same standards of treatment and care that a younger person who is capable of self advocating would demand. Don't be fooled, there are better choices.