6 Independent Living Communities in Rock County, Wisconsin

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.

ReviewerAT1215

My father is in Pine Valley Center For Rehab and Nursing, and it's the worst place on earth. They've treated him so bad, and my father said World War II was easier to handle than being in that place. The bathroom is shared by four people with the other door on the other side. They shouldn't get 1 star; it's terrible. I'm in the hospital with my dad right now. He had to get sent here because of my request. The nurses called me and said, "I don't know what else to do." The aides and the nurses don't know what they're doing. They left my dad who's 95 years old, crying for two hours writhing in pain, called me at 4:30 a.m. and this had gone on from November 30th. He finally went to the hospital December 3rd. They sent him back, and he had the problem again. They let him cry and scream for two hours, and the nurse said, "I don't know what else to do." I said, "Can he go to the hospital?" The nurse said, "Well, the family can request it." I said, "Pull out the number and I'll talk to him." The nurse said, "I have to get a doctor to approve it." Then he came in, took care of it, and this was where my father's in. It's awful. My father has been there since September. He said to me, "If I could walk, I'd walk out of here." On Monday, I wrote emails to the administrator, the director of nursing, and the social worker, and I said I want answers. Nobody has contacted me. That's how much they care. They lost my father's hearing aid, so I had to buy him another set for $2700, and they didn't take responsibility for that either.

DL

We already found a place for my father-in-law. It's Broadmoor Medical Lodge. We visited from the outside. Honestly, it hasn't been great. They're taking care of him pretty well as far as we know, but because we can't go in there, the communication has been very minimal. Any time we need to talk to them, we have to call them to get any information, and then sometimes it is hard to get them on the phone. My father-in-law talks to my husband at least once a day. They talk daily, but as far as the staff goes, we have hardly heard from them. We had somebody who supposedly tried to help us to get his Medicaid approved, but he was really rude. My father-in-law's room is a shared room, so he is with a roommate. They haven't told us anything about amenities. I think everything is just shut down. They aren't doing any socializing. They do have some outside areas. I think my father-in-law said that they let them outside a few times, not many times, but a couple of times. The building looks good. It looks newer, it is updated, and it looks great on the outside. I haven't seen the inside, but it looks really nice on the outside. I think the value is pretty good. He has Medicaid, so they're not charging him too much. I would give them a three just because their administration hasn't been very good. It may be higher if we could go inside and things were normal, but the way they're handling things during the pandemic, I would say it's a three right now.

Al

We selected The Retreat at Conyers. The way that it was set up was phenomenal, e.g., the open floor plans and the rooms. They reserved two rooms for my mother-in-law. So far, we're pretty pleased with the way it's going. They have an outdoor courtyard and an outdoor patio connected to the room. We didn't go on a virtual tour. I can't say much about the spaces on the inside other than my mother-in-law's room. The room opens up onto a sort of an atrium where the attendants are not far, which is good. They have daily activities that are hosted by an activity director. They have all the things that we could want. The food was good. Right now, we're pleased with The Retreat at Conyers.

RJ

Manchester Court was clean but the rooms were too small. The lady I spoke with there was very informative and friendly. It really just wasn't what we were looking for.