Wingate at Sudbury

Don F

My father went here for rehab after an extended hospital stay. They were supposed to help recondition him so he could return home. They did little to nothing, despite my father being willing and eager to participate in order to return home. When I did bring him home, he could barely get out of the car or up the steps to the house. When we would visit him at the facility - which was ever day for several weeks, he seemed reticent to talk about his care, as time went on, I sensed that he was afraid to speak negatively about the staff and it seemed like certain orderlies made him nervous. The place looks nice and it was clean, but as another reviewer noted, it is very cold and impersonal - and that includes the staff. It was always as quiet as a library and I never saw anyone socializing. There were no indications that any sort of social activity was going on in the facility. My father ultimately had to return to a nursing home a few months later. We did not go back to Wingate of Sudbury. We took him to a "lower rated" facility which was far better. It wasn't as fancy. The rooms had tile instead of carpet, but the staff was warm and personable and they had activities going all day even on the Alzheimer's unit. And you could see many residents strolling the halls and talking to one another and most noticeably, they were smiling. You really have to visit these facilities for yourself and pay attention to the people - both the residents and the staff. Ask to see the common rooms - are they empty or are activities going on? Visit at different time of the day. Ask what time breakfast is served and when it typically ends - that is when some facilities line up their resident to sit in the halls along the wall in their wheelchairs where they just sit silently and stare at one another. I did not see that at Wingate, but I did at other facilities I inspected. There are many good facilities out there, but I would not recommend Wingate of Sudbury.

birkwood

I do not recommend this nursing home. If your loved one stays on the short-term stay side of the facility...it looks nice, a bit like a hotel, and their room has a private bath and shower. If your loved one needs to stay there as they fail/until they pass away...that side of the facility is a whole other deal. No nice dining room downstairs like the other side.... Everything is cold and clinical. The general bathroom is large, cold, cement and tile, sterile, with shower stalls lining one wall, and a large walk-in stainless steel tub with no modesty panels etc. around it. It just sits there in the open. You hear patients chronically moaning...the atmosphere isn't warm or at all welcoming. Neither is a lot of the staff. I was sent literature about this managed healthcare plan called Evercare...which said I only had 2 days left to decide to enroll my loved one in the plan. It touted the benefits of your loved one being seen every day by Evercare, as opposed to once a week by your loved one's doctor. What the literature failed to say was...the Evercare nurse over-rules your loved one's doctor. In my mom's case...she had another heart attack, and Wingate called to notify me. What they said though was a vague statement..."your mother has had another incident...but we feel we can handle it." Over two and a half hours later, they called me again, to tell me they'd decided to send my mother to the hospital...a full two and a half hours+. after she'd had a heart attack! When they initially called me...I then called her doctor to tell her what they said. I asked him if he'd been notified. He said he hadn't. My God I thought, what is wrong with these people! It became clear to me that Evercare was more about saving $ for the nursing home, not about providing better care for your loved one. I tried to take my mom off the plan that week...it took me until the next month, until Wingate did so....meaning my mom was on Evercare for all of two months. Towards the end of her life...when my mom was having more frequent heart attacks, a Wingate nurse vented on me saying "How can you do this to your mother?!" "Do what?". I said. "Keep sending your mom to the hospital (post heart attack)!" "And what do YOU intend I do?" I asked.... "Keep her here (at Wingate) with no post-heart attack medicare care?!!!" The nurse just glared at me and said nothing. After my mom passed away, I read the riot act to the staff. And btw...when they returned my mom's belongings, even more items of clothing and etc., were missing. I wouldn't recommend this facility to anyone!