Maplewood at Southport

"Underwhelming Experience: Subpar Care and Communication at Maplewood."

Before you decide to place your parents in any assisted living facility, you need to ensure you're comfortable with the staff. Make some unplanned visits, and don't forget to have a list of questions ready. Try your best to understand the roles of all the key people, including individuals who'll be in daily contact with your parents. Once your parents are in, keep dropping by unexpectedly to observe the real situation. If your desire is for your parents to spend their golden years in the facility, confirm they have the necessary care and enough staff. The communication at Maplewood wasn't good. Despite our proactive efforts, our requests for meetings and calls took too long to get through. The moving-in process was stressful, not because of the moving itself, but the process leading to it. We requested a lease on numerous occasions, and it was eventually submitted to my sister, who had power of attorney, at the last minute. It was a whooping 70 pages, and it was given to her merely hours before her trip out of town! She was left with no option but to rush everything the following day; getting various signatures and arranging all the deposits. They wouldn't let my father move in until all this was sorted out, even though I had already planned for his bed and some items to be delivered within the allocated time. This brought about unnecessary chaos and stress during a naturally stressful period. The cleaning staff seemed friendly; the place was always clean albeit my father being there for a short period. I'm uncertain about the food quality since dad was also there for only a short while. He didn't find the meals tasty, and I've read some reviews mentioning that their touted 'farm to table' approach is untrue. There were claims of hot dogs and pasta being the commonly served meals. Also, dad had an unfortunate fall just a week after moving in. He was in the living room with others when he fell from his wheelchair. They claimed to have full-time aides on watch, but no one seems to know how the fall happened. This is totally unacceptable, considering how much such facilities charge. The only staffer I took a liking to was the director of the Memory Care floor. I advise Maplewood to work on improving virtually everything.

• Useful
• Not useful
• Share