I am very disappointed with the care provided at Northgate Health Care Facility in North Tonawanda, NY. The level of care and attention given to residents who need help is unacceptable.
The nurses and staff often do not respond when they are needed. Residents who are unable to walk or care for themselves are left waiting for hours for assistance with their basic needs. This shows a serious lack of care, compassion, and respect for people who depend entirely on others.
The food is often brought to residents cold and is of poor quality. The rooms are dirty and not properly maintained. Garbage is left in the rooms without being collected regularly, and there are unpleasant odors in the rooms. The overall hygiene standards are unacceptable.
Every resident deserves to be treated with dignity, respect, and proper care. Residents deserve clean living conditions, timely assistance, and quality care.
Please consider your family before you take them there.
They don't even deserve the 1 star. The amount of HIPAA & OSHA violations happening in that place is absurd. My mother was ignored, refused medication, lied to several times about her medication (of course, narcotics) & I still haven't been able to drive an answer out of them on why she wasn't ordered meds on time, and why there are so many ordered that are unaccounted for. The fact that in one incident they gave her double the amount of acetaminophen she was supposed to receive was horrible, but to make matters worse she was sent home with someone else's medication. If you care about your loved ones at all you would keep them the hell away from this place. They neglect patients, and obviously have a major pharmacy issue. My mother was 3 days post major back surgery and they refused her pain meds for 12 hours after arrival until I stepped in (from another state) and threatened a call to report abuse. This was after she was told AT THE HOSPITAL that they would have everything ready upon arrival. This place is sickening, and these people working there are demented. They don't know anything that is going on within their own facility, and they will not/cannot answer questions. I couldn't get my mother out of there fast enough and if you know someone in there, I strongly advise you do the same if you care at all about their well being.
My mother is here for rehabilitation after hip replacement. They are severely understaffed and facility is outdated. A lot of passing the buck. Communication amongst staff is lacking. Call light on for 30-60 minutes.
Sure there are the few shining stars amongst the staff, but they do not outshine the care being provided by this facility. Food is horrible. I don’t even know where they get it from.
The pt staff has been great, but they are only an hour to an hour and a half a day. Save your loved one. Do not check into this place. I can only hope my mother can escape soon.
Longest three weeks of my life with this place. The most disgusting experience ever. My mom fell getting out of her bed to use the restroom at 1130pm after waiting for over a hour when her call button was activated.
The food was not even fit for a dog and it was always cold. I was always present everyday to make sure she was ok, and time after time I was confronted with the same issues, either the light was lit and no Nurse or aide would come and respond to it or they would come in ask what the problem was and tell you they would be right back. That meant they would see you in an hour or so, I witnessed this myself more than once. They were not giving her, her heart medication till we caught it ourselves, and ask why. We were then told that it had to be ordered, we ended up bringing in our own meds. Their pt department seems to be on top of it. They care what they are doing, but when your loved one goes on the other side of the wall, you should go in and observe. Watch, and listen to the staff it won't take long before you overhear many conversations about working conditions and the 25 cent raise they did not get. Most of this coming from the second shift. After 7pm the patients are on there own. The unsupervised staff are left to do what they want and that's not to take care of your people. I will leave this here, and I will not need a rebuttal from management because this is all the truth.
If I could give 4.5 stars, I would. I’m going to separate my rating into 3 categories. My overall rating could not be a 5 because of the age of the facility and the food, but the staff definitely deserve more than a 5.
#1 is Staff at 5+ Stars
There are 2 things you couldn’t pay me enough to do #1 is teach, but a very close 2nd is health care worker.
My husband was a resident at Northgate for the last 25 months of his life. I spent 2 to 4 hours, of almost every day of those 2+ years at his room in A Unit. So I feel well-qualified to do this review.
I think a lot of the reviewers here just get a snapshot of what happens without the context of the everyday life. Residents vary in their needs and demands.
From the front office to the nurses and aides to the maintenance staff, there are professional, kind, compassionate people. A lot of them became like family to us.
It takes a special kind of person to work in the long term care environment, so the turnover can be high as employees who can’t handle it are culled pretty quickly. It’s easy to understand how those who show up for a full shift everyday can sometimes get overwhelmed.
My husband was not interested in many of the activities, but I could see that the activities staff were very caring and always doing their best to get residents involved and entertained. There were a lot of special shows, concerts and themed days, even parades through the halls to entertain the residents and guests.
He had several stays in the rehab unit prior to becoming a permanent resident. The physical and occupational therapists were dedicated and did their best to get him in shape to return home when he was able. They were all pleasant and professional.
#2 is Housekeeping and maintenance at 4.5 stars
The facility is old and needs constant repair and updating. The rooms get a deep cleaning a few times a year. It’s done in a regular rotation with everything being moved out of the room.
Unless the regular daily cleaners were off, the trash in the room was emptied at least once a day, sometimes multiple times. The regular cleaners were very conscientious, but they can’t work 24/7 and sometimes subs weren’t so dedicated.
Like aides and nurses, they certainly could use more personnel.
The laundry staff would come every day to see if he had anything that needed to be washed and to deliver clean clothes. They were always very friendly and clothing was cleaned regularly.
#3 is Food at 3.5 stars
Unfortunately, institutional food is difficult to prepare to everyone’s taste and to keep at a palatable temperature. To the defense of the food service staff, who do their best with what they have to work with, the kitchen is in serious need of updating. I don’t know how they manage to do the work they need to do. My husband was not too picky an eater, so he just took what they gave him. I know that the kitchen tried their best to accommodate people who rejected the regular meals, with soup and sandwiches. There was a hot dinner at lunch time on most days.
I was there on most days at that mealtime, and I can attest that, for some reason, everyone needed attention, my husband included, and put their lights on right about the time the meal trays showed up, so it would be all hands on deck, running around to attend to urgent needs, while still trying to distribute trays in a timely manner.
Overall rating 4.5
Remember most of the residents are elderly and ill, and some are not very patient or cooperative. It is sad that I saw some who never had visitors, but there were many who had regular visitors. It makes a big difference in their attitude. Some can be verbally abusive to staff, but I always saw them handle it the best they could without being unprofessional.
Nope, you couldn’t pay me enough to do that job!
