Assisted Living Community in Rockingham County, North Carolina

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.

Mike D.

My friend moved into the Pines of Newmarket, and it's very clean and well-kept. He has a single room with a bathroom and a couple of closets, and we had to bring some furniture in. The amenities are more than adequate. The people are very cooperative and want to make it as homey as possible for the residents. The staff knows everyone's names. The have a one-bedroom, a shared room, and double rooms. They have art, music, and brain games; he's busy all the time.

Lisa

We chose The Pines of Newmarket for my grandfather. He moved in recently. It's cost-effective. The area is nice. They're taking good care of my grandfather. They serve three meals a day. They provide transportation, but the VA offers it as well, so we use the VA.

Russ

We were very fortunate to have found The Pines of Newmarket for our father. They have a small number of residents under 50, it's a single level facility, and they had several choices for room sizes. My dad got a nice medium-sized room at a very reasonable cost. The rooms are well apportioned, and the place was just been redone to the tune of several million dollars, so it's in great condition. The food has been great and the staff has been exemplary. The administrator and the marketing manager couldn't have been more efficient and more pleasant, and assisted us in a lot of the stuff that we had to do. We've been very pleased. There's physical therapy and there's a lot of interactive resident programs. He's a Korean War veteran and there's a large number of men there, more so than in most places. Almost 25% of the residents are elderly gentlemen, and they get together on Wednesday afternoons for three hours to talk about the old days. He plays different community games like Bingo and Charades. They get him out of his room and have him interact with people, and he does physical training four times a week; some of it seated, some of it upright. It's a very engaging facility. The staff go out of their way. When we visit on schedule or have surprise visits, they're all pleasant. The place is always immaculate and everybody's being taken very good care of. This is my fourth elderly relative that we placed in a facility, and The Pines is right at the top. Considering the challenge of feeding that many people, it is institutional food, but it's definitely very high quality. It's been completely redone with new furniture, new amenities, new plumbing fixtures, new bathrooms, and insulated windows because it's very cold up here in the winter months. The overall condition of the facility inside and out is perfect.

Deborah

Greystone Farm at Salem is a very nice place. The staff is caring and amazing. In a short amount of time, they knew my aunt's name and they know my name and husband's name when we go to visit. Anything you ask, they get and can take care of pretty much. I really have no complaints at all and she's very happy there. The maintenance is good and the overall feeling is she thinks she's in her home. They make you feel very welcome and they take excellent care of my aunt. The food is also very good.

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.