1 Community in Derry, New Hampshire

Anonymous

Birch Heights is a 4-story building with 125 people and one elevator. There have been numerous injuries of people trying to navigate into the one elevator particularly after meal times, where a 100 people give or take, are trying to go up 2 to 4 floors. Probably 50% of whom has some type of walking device, either an automatic or manual chair, a cart, crutches, or canes. The elevator can accommodate maybe 6 people, and when they all have carts it may accommodate 4 at the most. A couple of months ago, a woman had her foot broken by somebody with a motorized cart driving over her foot while she was in the elevator, and sent her to the hospital. While that was an uncommon incident, there were many other injury incidences that are common. The elevator breaks 6 to 8 times in a year. Three days ago, the elevator broke again, and it immobilized the 3 people that are in wheelchairs and most of the people that had carts because they couldn't get into an elevator to go up to the 3rd or 4th floor to get into their medications or to do whatever else they maybe wanted to do. This happens frequently in this facility, sometimes twice in a month, sometimes 3 months go by without it happening at all. The local management here has no control over policy that takes place, that's the big part of the problem. The staff is excellent; the management is terrible. The local people have no control over doing anything. They always have to check the corporate office. The local management tries very hard to accommodate the residents here, but they can't do anything. The elevator situation is borderline horrific. People are having broken bones by using the elevator. The local management is not the problem, it's the corporate management. When people can be easily injured in a facility even if other things like the quality of the food or the cleanliness of the building, those things become somewhat irrelevant when there's something that's very overwhelmingly wrong with what's going on.

Gloria

My visit with Birch Heights went very well. They're very good at what they're doing. It's a beautiful place. It was just too expensive. The staff was great. They had everything there. They had fantastic activities. They are very busy and kept everybody happy.

Jon

My parents will be moving into Birch Heights. They have a very welcoming staff, they made themselves available whenever we went there, and they made sure they were there to take us around. It seemed to be a very active and vibrant type of community. Some people were playing some game with a ball, and there are other scheduled activities like bingo. There's an activity director who is in charge. We’re just waiting for the movers to bring up the stuff from New York.

Darlene

We toured Birch Heights. The apartments were very nice and everybody was accommodating. They have lots of activities, they have a library, a game room, and a bistro where you can get coffee.

Halina

The staff at Birch Heights was very gracious and very accommodating. I really like the community's set-up. You don't have to make a permanent commitment with them and you are able to rent your quarters for a month at a time. However, they don't have any vacancies.

Donald

Birch Heights was a nice place and had nice rooms. We liked the amenities there, but it wasn't what we could afford. There were things to do.

Visitor

Birch Heights dining room was very impressive. It’s big, open, airy, and very brightly lit. They have tons of activities ranging from movies to religious services, cooking, and exercises. They have laundry rooms, activity rooms where they do exercise or cooking demonstrations. They have a library, a pool table and internet room. They also had an area where you could sit by anytime during the day and get free coffee, tea or snack. They have shuttle buses that take the residents to the park, theater, shopping and grocery stores. The one thing about Birch Heights that was very different than the rest of the facilities is that they provide non-medical services. There are no licensed nursing assistants on site. There’s no physical therapy on site so they provide no medical services at all.

Visitor

I settled on Birch Heights. I chose it because I felt at home there and had the right feeling for me. I thought the facility was very clean and well kept. The grounds were pretty, and the lawn was taken care of. The food was good, and the price was right. They had an activities director, movies, and a library.

Visitor

I thought everything at Birch Heights was really excellent. I was very impressed. The whole layout of the facility and the feeling of it all was nice, open, friendly, and looked nice. They had different activities within the premises. The staff was wonderful, and I was impressed with their presentation.