Amethyst

When my mother first lived there it was a great place with great staff. She had to have several surgeries while she was there and when she was released back to Amethyst the staff always took great care of her. However, after about a year and a half of living there a lot of turnover in the staff started to occur and that was not a good thing. The level of attention and care she experienced went down because the staffing levels couldn't be maintained and many of the staff weren't as good as previous staff members. There were still staff members who did a great job, but, again, without enough staff to take care of the residents things took much longer to get done and there wasn't as much time spent with my mother as there had been. It's also very hard on residents, especially those like my mother who had some mental issues to get used to new staff members all the time. Eventually my mother had to move to a different location within the Amethyst that was for dementia and alzheimer's patients and she did receive great care there as they did really try to keep the same staff and the staff that did work there did a great job and really cared for and about the residents.

My husband's aunt wanted to tour Amethyst Arbor as she is currently looking to move in to an assisted living home, so I called to make sure it would be alright for us to drop in for a tour without having made an appointment. The person who answered the phone was very impolite and I was put on hold. After 30 minutes of sitting on hold, I decided to hang up the phone and call back. The same staff member answered and told me that she "guesses" it's okay. The treatment I received over the phone left me with a bad taste in my mouth so I told my husband's aunt that maybe Amethyst Arbor wasn't the right place for her, but she insisted we go. Upon pulling into the parking lot, I have to admit that the architecture of the facility is gorgeous. It is a beautiful Spanish motif and the landscaping was also stunning, it is very green. When we walked inside we were approached by a staff member, who was actually very sweet and polite. I explained that we had called earlier and we were there for a tour. She gave us a confused look and asked who we spoke with, I told her I wasn't sure of their name. She then proceeded to inform us that the person who directs the facility tours was not there that day. My husband's aunt waas very upset as it was quite a drive for us. This staff member was so nice, she said that the best she could do was get us an information packet (which happened to take about 30 minutes for her to find as the packets were not easily accessible) and let us walked around the facility and take a look, and that she would do her best to answer any questions. She kept apologizing over and over, She made the whole frustrating situation a lot more bearable. We walked around and talked to residents and viewed the different areas. The staff member even invited us to stay for some dessert. I think that the facility is beautiful and the residents we spoke to all seemed to love living there. My aunt liked the facility a lot, she loved talking to the residents about all of the fun activities and events that are available. I have mixed feelings about Amethyst Arbor, as I had both horrible and wonderful staff member experiences. I think that they need to be a bit more organized and have information packets readily available for visitors, I also did not appreciate the way I was treated over the phone, and being told it was okay to come in for a tour and driving all the way there just to be told the tour director was not even there. It is my hope that they become a bit more organized and service oriented, but other than that, the Amethyst Arbor is a beautiful facility.