Timberlane Lodge Assisted Living Facility

My mother-in-law stayed at Timberlane Lodge and suffered under their negligence, unkindness and horrible food. Staff were nice but beware the great acting by owners as they court you to have your loved one there. I’ll start with her unnecessary passing. Sandeep, explained that he’d told the nurse caring for her to keep the railing on her bed down so she would not have a sense of being trapped. Ok, but— this is a woman who really cannot walk unassisted without falling. And when my mother-in-law got up in the middle of the night, guess what? She fell and broke her hip. Why was the alarm not clipped to her nightgown? While I was down from Massachusetts for only a few days with a friend of mine, who knows and loves my mother-in-law we wheeled her onto the patio and were singing old time ukulele tunes. Of the three other residence who live there, one came up to me later and told me how much she enjoyed our singing. Another was bobbing her head to the music as we played the third person seems sweet but is non-responsive verbally so there's no knowing. Despite this, the next day Sandeep said he was going to limit my visit time that day. It was 2:30 in the afternoon and I was not to come back until 8pm (after her evening meds and when she’s usually asleep!). He said our presence was upsetting for the other residents. “They don’t have visitors,” he said, “you’re being here makes them feel bad.” Please understand that your visits very well may be limited even if you are in from out of town. Incidentally that was my last day in her presence before she died and I missed hours of it. Please note that when I could, I was bringing her food (because their food is little piles of non-nutritive crap: canned vegetables and elbow macaroni in what looked like melted mayonnaise but was possibly runny cheese). So don’t expect a very large portion of your monthly fee to go towards food. I feel horrible for not believing my mother-in-law when she told me how mean Sandeep and his wife Sunita were. I kept telling her, he’s nice, they are here to help you. And then, two days after she breaks her hip and has received no pain management he goes to move her from the chair to the bed and tells me not to worry when she screams because she’s faking it! He literally told me that. I said “no, she has a broken hip please be gentle.” This is a tough woman, who has had root canals without Novocain. If she’s expressing pain, she’s -in- real pain. When we were interviewing them to decide whether to put my mother-in-law there they said yes yes yes to all the things I inquired about. Could she sit with us in the lovely living room rather than the big TV room? Yes of course. My mother-in-law is a picky eater I told them. If we buy all the ingredients for the tuna salad she likes to eat -every single day- for lunch would it be too much for you to make it for her? It's nutritious and she loves it. Of course, we will be glad to. Did they ever make it? No. But when I came to make it were there cans of tuna anywhere: nope. And yet all the other cans of food that I had labeled with her initials were all still there. The Wolfgang Puck soups that she loves. None of them had been served to her. Recently a friend of hers told me that when she went there they told her we can’t figure out what she likes to eat. I had gone over with them all the foods she likes and will eat. Again I’m not asking for complex casseroles to be made. It means opening up a can of soup which we paid for and brought to them. And at one point I discovered her foot was -completely- black and blue. Sandeep said, oh that's probably from her compensating for her broken hip and putting more weight on that foot. It's hard to believe Sandeep is a scientist. Unlikely, besides, wrong foot. It looked much more like it had been stepped on. Main thing is how did they not know that her foot was completely black and blue (and probably broken also). It is public knowledge that four people from Timberlane Lodge died of Covid. A person working there returned from a two week hiatus. (If I remember correctly what Sandeep told me, she had actually been hospitalized.) Why is that? How did they not know she had Covid?! Why would you not insist on multiple Covid tests and taking of temperature for a worker who’s had a hospital stay? Negligence is the only thing I can think of. I took five or six Covid tests during my time of visiting my mother-in-law to assure her and everyone else’s safety. That was done on my part. But even sometimes when I would enter the building for the first time after being gone for more than a day, Sandeep would not walk over to take my temperature. Do not let your loved one go to Timberlane Lodge.

This is a lovely home that has been transformed into a beautiful setting for seniors. The owner is highly involved and the care is excellent.