Ferncliff Nursing Home Co

If you have even a shred of care and concern for your loved one's health and well-being, keep them out of this facility. This is a huge place with 328 beds and is very overwhelming. The place is outdated and the building looks like it was carved out of the former [removed] and dropped onto a meandering and isolated estate sequestered from the surrounding community. Inside it is dismal and institutional looking with absolutely no warmth or qualities of a home. It is owned and operated by the Archdiocese of New York and is a not-for-profit facility. Usually with not-for-profits, they pool their resources to provide better services. That must not be the case here. It is apparent that they decrease their costs to increase revenue (the profit difference that Medicare/Medicaid doesn't provide) by compromising their quality of care. My father was transferred there for sub-acute rehab after being treated in the hospital for four weeks for a massive stroke. The stroke rendered him unable to speak and paralyzed on his entire left side. He was at Ferncliff for only 3 1/2 days. Upon his arrival, he was still unable to speak but was alert, responsive, and cognizant of everything around him. Being his Health Care Proxy/mouthpiece, I played an active role in his short stay there. When he arrived, I settled him into his room and there was no warm welcome by the admissions director (who was super warm on the tour she gave me before I decided to let my father stay there) or any kind of orientation for his arrival at all. The "welcome book" didn't even have a directory of important names/numbers in it. His various "therapy team members" popped in and out of the room and spoke with me about their role in his recovery, never to see nor speak to them again. The nutritionist popped in and told me that she would give him a similar formula to the diabetic liquid diet the hospital had him on. I later found out that she gave him a high carb high calorie formula not for diabetics called Jevity, not Glucerna. During my visit on his second day there, I noticed a visible change in him to the point where his eyes rolled back and I called the nursing staff into his room. They assured me that he was tired from having physical therapy earlier but I later found out that he didn't go down for physical therapy and someone just did some range of motion bedside while he was asleep. Everything came to a stand still over the weekend and come Saturday morning when I called to get a health update from his nurse, she reported that his blood sugar level was in the high 300's. I asked her if it had to do with his nutrition and she couldn't answer me (another cost saving strategy in nursing homes is to hire all LPN's and with one RN as the unit's head nurse who doesn't even work on the weekends) because LPN's do not make medical assessments. When I went to see him that afternoon he was in a stupor and unresponsive. He continued to be this way with each visit and when I asked if this was cause for concern, the nurse said he was fine because his vitals were okay and his insulin dosage was adjusted. Monday morning I received a call from the unit doctor telling me that my father had sepsis and was being taken by ambulance to the ER. His life now hangs in the balance.......