Northwoods Lodge

Kim30

My mother-in-law was at Northwoods Lodge before and we were very pleased with it. They give excellent care. They're very attentive and they're all very nice. The care is excellent. The food is OK. It's better than most. The parking lot is a little bit small. The place never smells. It's very clean. When you walk into some other nursing homes, you smell urine and poop and all of that, but there was never any of that at Northwoods Lodge. They have a gym for therapy and all the therapists either come in the room or take the person to the gym. They have activities. I think they have a movie day where they give popcorn and the patients can watch movies. I was impressed with that. It appears that they're doing a great job to keep patients busy. As soon as you walk in there, the lady, or whoever was at the desk, greets you. They're friendly and they're attentive. They'll walk back with you. It's very caring and a very calm atmosphere.

Linda

We went to Northwoods Lodge for physical rehabilitation. My mother managed to stay there for five days and could not stand it. The food was very institutional. It was not good food that they served. She wouldn't eat it. It took them two days to get any kind of anybody in there to look at her for physical therapy. She showed up on a Monday night and they didn't see her until Wednesday, and by then she wanted to leave. They left her in bed the first night, but she didn't have any rails on her bed, so she was like a turtle on her back. She couldn't get out of bed. She is a high fall risk, but whenever she pushed the button because she had to get up to go pee, nobody would show up. It would take them forever to get there, and she would have already peed herself. She was just miserable there. She wanted to come home where she can be taken care of properly. That's about all I can say. If somebody was to go into it for long-term care, the actual building itself is a very nice building. When you walk in, they have two doors to go through, so it's a secure facility. There is no odor at all. It smells clean there. They've got nice hallways. They've got a beautiful sitting room with a nice fireplace. The building itself is gorgeous. They have an entire physical therapy gym that my mom never got into because she couldn't stay there long enough to do it. The problem that they have there is staffing. They're understaffed for the level of care my mom needed. She has incontinence issues and could not get up on her own. Also, they wouldn't let her get up the first 48 hours without somebody there and they didn't show up in time. The food was terrible, but other than that, the building itself is very nice. It's got nice parking. It's got nice hallways. The bedrooms are nice-looking. They're short-staffed. They just need more staff. There are not enough people there to take care of all the patients they have.

former spouse

I am a relative of a former patient. I can't emphasize enough the inept care my relative received at this facility: ) Lack of typical supplies in his room; 2) Lack of response when he needed assistance 3) No menu provided until the day before he left; 4) Absolutely no discharge planning; as a result he had no hospital bed, wheelchair, commode, etc. at home for a week after discharge; Nurse supervisor told family "just order what you need from Amazon and you will have it the next day." 5) Hospice visits at home were delayed due to lack of discharge planning. 6) OT and PT did not occur as scheduled. 7) Family members were not shown or coached on how to transfer patient from bed to wheelchair or how to safely bathe or shower him. 8) The patient was not informed of any activities; in fact, relatives assumed there were no activities beyond lying in bed for hours on end. 9) I was not aware of any amenities apart from a bed and a couple of chairs in his room, and occasionally a wheelchair was available. The room was generally clean and the staff (when we could connect with them) were friendly, but not helpful. I must say here that I shudder when I hear of others who go to this facility for rehab. It is like a bad dream. It saddens me to think that my relative spent about three of the last weeks of his life at this worthless facility.

Twyla

My husband has been in Northwoods Lodge for 21 days now. He came from having a stroke at the hospital, and therefore, there was a lot of transitioning with knowing what to do with him and what would he be able to do that kind of thing. I feel like it was a difficult situation. Because of his Lewy Body disease, he's not able to talk very much, so his own input was not too great. They had to scramble, so to speak, and they did a very good job with that. I feel they are understaffed on the weekends, that is my observation, because things are much slower, and there are not as many people available when you need help. But during the week, everything comes very smoothly, and they have a very good staff. The social worker helped me a lot. I would generally say their nurses are very good; I don't have a complaint. The only thing I would say is that I wish he could have stayed longer because I don't feel he's ready to transition yet. It's an institution. You have to call ahead and say you're coming. They always said I could come, of course. You are met at the front desk, then you get the masks, you can get your temperature taken, and you would then call back to see your patient. It's a hospital kind of setting. He had to share a room. In his case, he did partake in therapies of all kinds, but as far as his activities, I don't know if they had any because he wasn't involved in any.

gajunkman

stayed here for three weeks and had some of the worst care I have ever had. The food was very low quality. There were only three nurses that knew what they were doing or even cared what kind of care they were giving. Meds. are slow to be given, the contract nurses don't understand their job. In the three weeks I was there my bedding was changed twice. I will never come back and would not send my dog to be cared for here. The shower did not work correctly and the entire ploace smelled of urine and feces.

Mabellives

My mother stayed here at the facility for 3 weeks just recently. It took upwards of an hour before her lights were answered. She sat in her urine for hours at a time. Sometime they didn’t get her dressed for the day. They also missed a lot of her medications. They didn’t give her scheduled baths. She had to ask for the showers or she’d get maybe one a week. They didn’t provide any activities for my mother to do while she was there. Her TV was broken. She essentially spent 3 weeks staring at a wall. I visited her everyday and witnessed this all first hand. I blame this on the director of nursing and the staff that runs the home. They’re not staffing the unit properly. Perhaps it time to raise wages and offer better benefits.