Medicaid Nursing Homes

An elderly family member recently broke her hip and ended up in Eastgate Springs, then got bumped over to Harmony Court.

Both places were pretty understaffed and dirty, both facilities smell like urine. I even went so far as to mop her floor at Harmony Court due to a sticky stain that appeared to have been there well before her stay.

This family member is known to be difficult within the family, definitely in cognitive decline, extremely paranoid, and probably has a few undiagnosed mental issues (OCD about germs, dyslexia). She also had breast cancer at one point and went through chemo (to my knowledge). She is incontinent, and from what I could see, the aides were letting her sit in her urine for extended periods of time. She would become extremely agitated by having to wait, sometimes upwards of 40 minutes. It's hard to know if my aunt has a grasp on reality, sometimes she seems to be lucid and clear, other times, out of it. She's been on pain killers for years for neuropathy. But, she told me at one point, the aides have shamed her for her incontinence.

Has anyone had any experience with family members being difficult in facilities that are known to have less than adequate care, and seeing improvement upon getting them into better facilities?

I'm worried she'll never get a chance to even go to a better facility if the low rated ones have her marked down as non-compliant. I don't know that she will do better in a better place, but she's only been in places where the facility is gross, the food is terrible, and from personal experience having visited, even before the aides knew who I was visiting, found the staff to be unhelpful at best, and hostile at worst.