The Philadelphia Protestant Home

Both my father and mother stayed at the Philadelphia Protestant Home at two different time periods in their life. I found that staff to be indifferent and often unavailable. Nurse stations were often unmanned. Requests for simple items such as towels or toilet paper seemed to be a bother to them. My father was often unkept and dirty. My mother was put in a wheelchair that had dried vomit caked on the side. When I asked another wheelchair they seemed bothered by my request. People were sitting in wheelchairs in hallways asking me to push them to different rooms. Others called out for help but nobody was listening to them. I understand it is not the job of the nursing staff to provide entertainment to the home's lonley residents, it disturbed me to experience the apathy the staff seemed to have. I often questioned why someone would take such a job if they weren't dedicated to it. The only reason I didn't give them 1 star is that neither of my parents were abused physically.

When it came to receive extra care for my mother, I would have done anything to keep her out of a retirement home. Since my father had passed away, I had become the decision maker of her future. We looked around at different places in Philadelphia, but I wanted her to be somewhere that she would feel at home. Then I found the Philadelphia Protestant Home. The people were so nice as soon as we walked in and we felt very welcomed. We looked at different packages and picked the one that best suited our needs, and medicare covered just about all of it. Our favorite feature was that she didn't receive a little room, she received a miniature home. She had everything she needed, even her own bathroom. I was afraid of how she would react to the food, since I have heard of bad experiences with the cooking in places like this, but even I enjoyed the food! My mother has her own meal plan where she could eat three meals a day and snacks like muffins in between. She even made her own group of friends with the other residents at the Protestant home and they did numerous activities to keep everybody involved. My mother passed away in November of 2010, but I know that she enjoyed the last few months of her life. She was surrounded by her new friends, whom she referred to as her family. I was able to visit her whenever I wanted and they kept us very involved in her daily schedules and medical problems. I am glad my mother had the experience that she did at the Protestant Home, because it changed the way that I think about retirement homes. I would definitely recommend them to anybody.