Signature HealthCARE of Chillicothe

Emma

My husband was at Signature HealthCARE. It was bad. He was in quarantine for the first two weeks and he was inside his room, so we couldn't even see him. We tried to talk to him on the phone, but since he was paralyzed on one side, he couldn't manage the phone very well. Then they moved him after two weeks into a room with a window, so I can go and look at him through the window, but he is still having trouble with the phone. They had no phone in the room so I had to take his cell phone, and it's also very hard to manage his cell phone with one hand. I wanted to take his clothes home and wash them because he didn't have any clothes when he asked for something to put on. He had clothes in the room because when he left, he took his clothes home with him. They got him out the bed, maybe three times, the whole time he was there. There's no communication. He fell the first night he was there, and they did not let anyone know. He was trying to get out of the bed but he didn't realize he couldn't, and after that they would not let him out of the bed. I gave him one of those grabber things so he could pull himself up whenever, and they took it away from him. One night, he managed to call in the middle of the night, and they took his phone away from him that night. They told him that I told them to take it away from him, which of course I did not because I wanted to hear from him anytime he wanted to call me, it doesn't matter what time at night. So we had no idea what medicines he was on. There was just nothing, no contact with his family either me or his son at all. He was miserable and felt like he was in prison. They had a fellow with him in a double room, who kept his TV on loud all the time. There was also a woman who wandered up down the hall and came into his room. He didn't want women coming into his room. He was very mad. It might have been different if we had been allowed to visit him and help him with things that he needed help, but we were not allowed to because of the COVID. There were a couple of good nurses. He got some therapy. They put him in his chair a couple of times, and the guy said he would be back, but he said he went home. He was stuck in his chair not being able to sit up very well, and finally, two nurses came and managed to wrestle him back in the bed. He was really thankful for that and wrote a nice letter thanking them, thanking God for good nurses. It was not a good experience for any of us. Some of the staff were good; some of them were not. Four people came in one day and surrounded my husband's bed. They got onto him and talked really mean to him because he said something to them, because they took the grabber thing away from him and put it out of his reach. Then a couple of days later, someone came in and apologized and said that should not have happened. He's lying there helpless, he can't do anything for himself, he has to depend on everybody. There's nothing wrong with his mind. His brain is fine; his mind is fine. His left side just doesn't work. The facility seemed alright, but you can't really tell when you're outside looking in. He said the food was bad. He could hardly eat anything when he was there.