Summerfield Retirement Estates

I am a friend or relative of a resident

When we entered we were greeted by friendly staff. The building was in good repair and surprisingly didn't smell like old people. There is a library area with a fireplace that my grandmother enjoyed sitting in. One of the aspects of Summerfield that my grandmother particularly enjoyed was the meal times. They hire local teens to be servers and she really enjoyed the contact she had with them. The meals were well balanced for everyone with many options for people with different dietary needs. She always raved about the food and would talk about the menu constantly.She also enjoyed her balcony and the view of the nearby golf course and loved having some flowers around her (we had got some flower pots to hang on her railng and she loved them). The whole building is full of nice touches of home that makes the place feel inviting and comforting.

Out of all of my visits to Summerfield Estates I have always had an amazing time - the community has always been clean and well-kept, the residents have always seemed to be comfortable and happy, and the staff members have always appeared to be satisfied with their jobs and pleased to care for the residents. I have never seen any issues involving resident care and/or treatments. Every visit I have had at this community has been great. SO I am kind of at a loss as to why my three most recent visits have been full of resident/family member complaints and concerns. I even for the very first time witnessed a couple of instances which have caused me concern. The residents and family members have been recently coming to me with concerns regarding irresponsibility on behalf of the staff. They told me that laundry keeps getting mixed up and residents are losing their clothes, they said that they will send their clothes out to be laundered and then either the wrong clothes will come back, items of clothing will be missing, or their clothing will come back dirty as if the staff never washed them in the first place, but just folded them, put them back in the basket and brought the residents back a basket of unwashed clothing! Now I, again, have never seen this happen personally and I, in the past, have only had good experiences with the staff completing their tasks thoroughly and as scheduled. SO it blows my mind that this stuff is happening - because the staff I knew (or thought I knew) would NEVER have let these things happen as they were very meticulous when it came to fulfilling the residents needs. I mean, these residents are Independent Living residents, so it's not like they need a lot of assistance or help with daily tasks as they for the most part are able to fend for themselves, so all the staff member's really only have worry about is the residents domestic needs such as laundry, housekeeping, etc. (which aren't even daily tasks as they are typically completed weekly) as well as running and maintaining the community itself so there is no excuse for completing the tasks sloppily. I know this has only become a recent occurrence as I only began hearing complaints in my most recent visit, so because this behavior toward completing tasks is recent, I am hoping that it is also temporary.

Hopefully the staff can soon find their way again and begin to once again complete their duties as thoroughly as they did before because I really want for people who are planning on touring this community in the near future to be able to see the community as it usually, as it should be - not what it has recently become. It is also not fair to the current residents as they know how great the community can be ran, how organized and thorough the staff are - so how is it fair that they now have to deal with second-rate work when they know the staff members are capable of first-rate work? It's not fair and I hope the staff soon realize just how unfair it is.