Merriam Gardens Healthcare & Rehab

tickmenot

Hospitals, these days, kick you out even before you have gotten over something, and that was what happened with my Dad when he had pneumonia. The hospital recommended Dad be sent to Trinity for recovery. This place put Dad in a room with a man who was very sick with an extremely contagious illness. Yes, Trinity knew this man had Clostridium difficile or "C. diff" that causes lots of intestinal pain and explosive diarrhea. Trinity knew they were supposed to keep that man isolated, yet they put my poor father in there. Of course, Dad caught it and was just miserable. There are only two types of medicine that can treat it. One medicine is really cheap and rarely works. The other is very expensive, which is what Dad had to have before he could get over it. Of course, once you have C diff, it can recur over and over. What a nightmare. Evidently when you set foot in a nursing home door all your freedom of choice for your doctor is taken away from you. For better or worse, you must use the nursing home "house" doctor. The Trinity "doctor" was a joke. He didn't have an actual office where he could be contacted. He had a bunch of nursing homes under his so-called "care." This doctor didn't have set days or times that he would show up at Trinity to see the patients. The staff told us he would just "pop in" at all times of the day or night. Sometimes he might "pop in" at 8:30 PM at night. Other times he might show up at 11:00 AM. He had an answering service acting as a gate keeper if you tried to telephone him, but they wouldn't make appointments for him to speak with someone. And "pop in" was the operative word for him because he was in and out of Trinity like the speed of light. Good luck if you wanted to run this guy down to talk to him about your loved one. We attempted many times to get to talk with him. We were told the doctor would be at Trinity at a certain time. So we would then rearrange our schedules, and take time off from work to see this Trinity doctor. The employees at Trinity were asked to tell the doctor we would be there at that certain time, and date the doctor supposedly was coming--and they would tell us they would take care of it. But when we would arrive, we would be told the doctor had come early, and already left. Even though he had been at the nursing home less than an hour, he had supposedly checked over all the patients while he was there. Just how thorough are these medical exams?! We tried to make connections with this doctor many times and played out the above scenario over each time. No matter what shape the people were in (wheelchair bound, vision problems, handicapped) the "inmates" were not helped to the eating room. (I can't call it a dining room because the paint was faded, dust was so thick you could write in it and cobwebs hung from every space.) If you are there at meal time, you will see these poor people struggling to eat to their meals without a single Trinity worker lifting a finger to help them. If the poor souls made it to the room for food, they are greeted with warmed-up, pre-fab food in portions that make a regular Banquet TV dinner look enormous. My Dad was constantly hungry while he was there. Either my Mom or my family brought him something to eat every day, and he was always ravenous. After mealtimes, the patients are once again on their own. No matter what struggles they may have, Trinity employees don't help. This point was clearly brought home to us when we went to visit Dad one evening. We went to Dad's room and he wasn't there. When we asked the Trinity employees where Dad was, they didn't know. An hour and a half later, Dad was found. My Dad had begun losing his sight, so he needed help getting to places since he couldn't see. Of course, no Trinity employee would dare help a patient. When he left after supper, he got turned around and lost. With no one to help him, he thought he had found his room and went in. It turned out he had gone into the wrong room. Of course the personal had no idea where he was. We often wonder how many times he was "lost" when we weren't around. At this point, Dad was also in a wheelchair. He had become so weakened from the C diff, and being kept in bed so long, he could no longer walk. Trinity was supposed to give him physical therapy, but that too was a joke. My Dad was never able to walk on his own again after his stint at Trinity. I think this place is just awful. We wanted to take Dad out of there as soon as possible, but they wrapped us up in so much red tape that it felt like we were trying to break him out of jail. Trinity acted like they would get some sort of black mark if a patient left early--which was well deserved if that is true. So they were very unhelpful when trying to get an early release for my father. Eventually we were able to get him out. We were so happy to have him out of there, we felt like having a party. I don't know who is making all the money here. This place wasn't cheap, but the quality of care certainly was. Thousands of my parent's hard earned dollars were thrown away at this place, for this lackluster treatment. The employees who work there certainly aren't being paid much, and the caliber of their work is in line with the little they are paid. An independent, non-biased board is needed to inspect and rate nursing homes, and hold them accountable for their care--or lack of it. I would never recommend this place.

justice4everyone

In my opinion this place is HORRIBLE My grandmother was recently transferred to this nursing home from KU medical Center. She is unable to move or speak. We left my grandfather with her so that we thought she would be taken care of until we could get the funds together to have her transported. When we arrived a couple days before transport my grandmother was in the worst condition - it is unimaginable and down right criminal. They were only bathing her twice a week, She was not being rotated, and they were not using a powder prescribed by the doctors to prevent bed sores so she developed horrible sores. My family member was crying because he said they would leave her in her dirty diapers for hours and if he asked them to do anything they would yell at him. She had crap under her nails, in her hair, she smelled so bad. My family member was going to brush her teeth and discovered her mouth was full of sputum and she was choking on it. We thankfully are getting my grandma out of this horrible place, i would like to see everyone who works here prosecuted, and if i could give them negative stars i would. Please Do Not let your family members stay here - it is a horrible place, with horrible standards and it breaks my heart that there are people who will still be here when we leave.

Godhavemercy

This place is not a 5 star facility. Many of the CNA's are lazy. Night nurses are slow to respond to call light. Very high turnover. Nurse are extremely lazy. Always looking for an aide to do the work, when they could do it themselves Leave feces on residents for skin breakdowns to occur & contract UTI's. Don't take anyone to this place if you genuinely love them. Residents spend the majority of the day sitting in a wheelchair, left to fend for themselves.