Pacific Post Acute

rromerotx

The Facility and especially the Staff are excellent. This is the first time any close family member of mine has needed a Skilled Nursing so I was uncomfortable and unsure of what the place was going to be like for my Father, 81 yrs old. From the Nurses, Assistants, PT, OT, Speech Therapists, Social Services and everyone I forget to name, they were all so caring and truly worked hard to encourage him to take his meds regularly, go to therapy and eat good hearty healthy food. In 2 weeks he gained a needed 10 lbs and learned how to use a cane. Many thanks to everyone. This was the best choice for my family and I hope it will be for yours too.

TimGonzolada

Best facility in the area.Flower garden. Great Care. Good Admin Dr. John & Director of Nursing, Virginia. Only one that has all of their own nurses, no contracted labor. Many nurses have worked there over 10 years. Short term rehab, will come again if I need to. Thanks.

Victoria Sh

On July 2nd of this year, my father, who had been diagnosed as having late-stage Alzheimer’s disease (AD), was transferred from UCLA hospital in Santa Monica to the Pacific Post-Acute Nursing Home on 17th Street in Santa Monica, a facility that advertises itself as a “five-star, skilled nursing facility that provides personalized rehabilitation and nursing services in a comfortable environment.” Naturally wishing to visit him in his new facility, I was informed that I would need to make an appointment to see my father; the first available to me was the 4th of July. When I sought out his room on the appointed day, I discovered that he was simply not there. Asking the staff about this anomaly, I was blithely told that he was certainly in his room. “No, he isn’t,” I insisted. Subsequently he was found to be visiting in another patient’s room. The excuse of the staff to their not knowing his location was a simple one: “Sorry, we didn’t know he could walk.” I thought, “Five-star, personalized services?” and asked if they had bothered to read his medical file before taking him in as a patient, only to be met with silence. When I took him outside into the daylight I observed blistering all around his lips as well as under his chin. I asked the CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) how this had ever come to pass, and was told: “I don’t know. I think maybe he was shaved with a dirty razor.” Of course this prompted my asking her if she didn’t know who had shaved him, would she please find out for me, a query which was cut off by the response that in fact she had asked about this, but “Nobody knows who did it and you ask too many questions.” When I challenged her by asking whether in fact she was telling me that somebody could have come in from the outside and shaved my father’s face without anyone knowing his identity, she once again answered with a simple “I do not know.” Later, sitting in the back yard with my father, it was very disturbing to hear patients crying out for help with no one bothering to attend to their needs. The next day, the 5th of July, I went back to the Pacific Post-Acute Nursing Home to check on my father and discovered him to be sleepy and unresponsive. I asked his CNA to provide me with a list of the medications that my father had been given since I saw him last. Her answer was to tell me that she simply didn’t know and that I’d have to ask the doctor on duty. The supervising doctor did call me later and informed me that an error had been made, and that instead of having been given a 25mg dose of the prescribed medication, my father had been administered a 75mg dose instead. He apologized for the mix-up and told me he’d had it corrected … On the 6th I returned to visit my father, but when I entered his room I was shocked to find him lying half on the bed, half off, with his legs dangling over the side and entirely naked except for a wet diaper. He was very cold and was asking for help but garnering no response from the staff. I called out desperately for assistance and by the time the social worker, the RN, and the CNA all traipsed into the room they found me crying and trying to cover my father as best I could. Somewhat beside myself, I asked them if this was how they were accustomed to treating their patients, and was given the now familiar, “We don’t know what happened.” From my point of view, as a clinical PhD psychologist, I couldn’t help but find their indifference problematic, and as my rage swelled, I told them that my father was a human being, and yet he was being treated like an animal. In fact, I conjectured, I supposed they treated their pets better than they did their patients; that said, I addressed myself to the social worker. I noted that it was her duty to report this institutional negligence to a higher authority, while admonishing her not to be adversely influenced by the nursing home administration. I reminded her that she had taken an oath of service, and that accordingly she was duty-bound to protect my father against the careless negligence he was obviously enduring. She advised me that she had taken note of everything, and that she would faithfully report the facts of her findings. However, my surmise is that she did not do so or perhaps the administration fired her before she could act—but in any case I believe a wrong has been done. I decided, given all that had happened, that my father’s health and welfare were not being served at the Pacific Post-Acute Nursing Home and so, despite all the difficulties this would entail for me, the only responsible course was to take him home with me at once. The administration, however, insisted that I would need to sign a release in order to be allowed to do so. At this point, the home had lost my trust and I was unwilling to sign a legal document releasing them of any responsibility for my father’s state, so I told them that if they did not allow him to leave with me I would be calling 911 to report them for elder abuse. The prospect of that happening produced the desired effect and I was told “Okay, then take him with you.” However, when asked where his clothing was, their response was unbelievably that he simply had none. The first thing I did once my father was home with me was to check his blood sugar, and to my consternation I found that it was 370; they apparently had not administered his insulin. He was crying from back and neck pain; he could not walk; he had lost significant weight in just a few days from not being fed properly, or fed at all. He had a UTI (urinary tract infection), and was so traumatized by his experience at the home that he kept waking up every half hour or so to cry out for help. When I brought him to his primary doctor, having made an urgent appointment, she could barely believe that he had suffered so much deterioration in his health in a mere four days. I reported my very adverse experience with the Pacific Post-Acute Nursing Home to Medicare, suggesting that the five-star rating they had posted for the facility on their website would be more accurately shown as a zero. I reported the institution to every agency I could think of: the California Department of Health, the Alzheimer’s Association, the UCLA hospital, the California Long-Term Care Ombudsman, and the county’s Adult Protect Services agency. I very much want to ensure that what happened to my father not happen to anyone else ever again. Please, please, do not take a loved one to this disturbingly uncaring facility, for I experienced them to simply have no empathy at all for their patients. I believe the Pacific Post-Acute Nursing Home is probably the very worst place you could find for care of any term—and on so many levels.