Elant at Fishkill

leht

Thank goodness I got my mother out of this place after 2 days. She was alone at the end of a long dark hallway in a filthy room. Horribly understaffed & the smell of urine was potent even thru my mask. Patients were wailing & one was agitated & screaming to go home. A few hours after I visited, my mother fell & was discovered with a fractured face & needed stitches. After the ambulance took her to the hospital, I made sure she would not go back there. She is in a better place now. Avoid this place for your loved one!

Miss L

Now known as Sapphire, this facility has some dedicated and long-term staff. On the whole, however, I cannot recommend this facility. My experience is primarily related to an elderly relative with dementia who was a resident for more than three years, up to very recently. The facility has been in ownership transition on and off for a couple of years. Since its most current owners took over, a limited liability corporation that owns other Mid-Hudson facilities and facilities in the city and elsewhere, it has gone ever further downhill. I'll focus on three areas: care, facility and communication. Care: I don't believe there is imminent and immediate grave danger. I believe residents get their medications as they should. I believe, however, that the minimum is done so that state regulations are not violated. The primary problem is understaffing and high turnover, mostly with aides. Some of those who have worked there are genuinely good caregivers, but they leave for a variety of reasons. If you are visiting and need assistance, you must first FIND someone, and then, usually, wait until they are free to help. Facility: Rundown. Needs significant improvement. From time to time, they paint it, but I think that is the minimum to make it look halfway decent. If you come in the main entrance, you will be impressed by a large function room. That's pretty the extent of it. I can't imagine a worse layout for a nursing facility. Rooms are organized in clusters of about 9 rooms, off of long hallways, quite a distance from a single small nursing station. There is usually no staff in any cluster, but you do see dementia residents wandering into others' rooms. Basically, no supervision. Each main unit a has a day room, and for dementia residents, they are literally parked here for the day. There's little artwork on the walls, the TV is often playing something inappropriate, such as action movies. Cleanliness is haphazard at best. Tables are usually sticky or have crumbs and spills on them. Wheelchairs are the same. The outdoor courtyards are literally crumbling. The on-site laundry has been undergoing "renovation" for almost a year, so all clothing and linens are sent out en masse to facilities many miles away. But when there was an on-site laundry, it was about as poorly managed as it's possible to be. Clothing often disappears. While you can report and be reimbursed for this, it happens so often that it's pointless. Communication: Poor. Staff will contact you if your loved one has a fall or a bruise, because they have to by law. But typically, calls about specific issues go unreturned. Unit managers voice frustration and know little of what is going on for overall facility management. No one ever knows anything. The facility manager is just overwhelmed. Until recently, the manager seemed genuinely incompetent. At any rate, there is no effort at outreach to resident families, no effort at all to inform families of what is taking place (such as, the laundry situation). Literally, for four years, I've been told the facility will be renovated in the next few months. Bottom line: If you can get your loved one in a different facility, you should, even if it means an extra 10-20 miles drive. If you visit to check it out, ask to see the entire facility (which is four units), courtyards, and even the main kitchen. Look in individual rooms and pay attention to closets, vanities, quality of beds, bedding itself, and operation of doors and windows.

tedtiff

I am disgusted with what I had to face today while visiting my best friend today at The Elant in Beacon. I work in the medical field and am understanding to the "under staffed phrase ". However, when I came into her room she was laying in bed at 10:00am and said that the staff had not been in to get her up and cleaned. I asked her if she wanted to get up and sit in the wheelchair for a little while( which I have gotten her up many times before on my own) well when I sat her up she stunk like she had been laying in her urine for a week. Her hair was matted and knotted as well as dirty. I lost it! I went straight to the nurses station and DEMANDED someone come in and take care of this situation. I was told that they were short staffed and that she would make my friend next on the list. Some 20 minutes later it was the Nurse that came in to take care of my friend not an aid. Are you kidding me? I am grateful that my friend was taken care of but I do question how long would it have been if I wasn't there to fight for her? I will be making a lot more frequent stops there now to make sure she is being taken care of properly. It still concerns me about the other residences that don't have anyone to fight for them. So incredibly sad. I am heartbroken and Angry..

Springmarie

Do not put your parent in this place! It's disgusting ! They abuse older people not all the aides are abusive but the ones that I have dealt with are! I caught one yelling at my mother I hate my mother in this place ! The rooms are closets with little or no room if you share the roof leaks horrible when it rains some even leak in the room and it sits for weeks till it gets fixed there is no place to visit and have coffee with your parent the food in the cafeteria and the cafeteria itself is dull and unappetizing but most of all the care my mother receives is not worth what she pays and when I lived in the same star I went there every day because she was being bullied and I would not stand for it! So I was abwatchdog

BorisM

If your family member needs help using the restroom or has trouble ambulating go somewhere else. They are understaffed and so many of the aides completely ignore them. The social workers say they will help rectify the situation and it never changes. PT and OT are great but once they are gone the patients are lucky to get their basic needs met. Horrible experience. Worse food. Complete disregard for their clients care and well being.

gurlzone

This review is based on 10 visits of about 4 hours each with my elderly mother in the rehab unit. My mother was put in a shared room. It was very small for two people. The bathroom was tiny, not ventilated and always stank of urine. The walls of the room needed repair and painting, giving it a dingy appearance. After I told staff that my mother had accidentally urinated onto the cushion of a chair in a shared living space, no one cleaned the chair for the remaining few hours I was there. I wonder if anyone ever cleans these accidents, because the smell of urine wafts throughout the facility. But the worst thing I witnessed over and over again was bedridden residents using their call bell and staff rarely coming to find out what the resident needed in less then 10 minutes and sometimes as long as 30 minutes. In fact, the resident rooms and common areas were often without any visible staff for extended periods of time. (Someone with a life-threatening emergency would die before staff arrived.) I even heard patients yelling, "Help!" I checked in on them because no one else was. Most of the patients I spoke with rang their call bell because they needed staff to help to get to a commode/bathroom. If the need was urgent, some of them just gave up and urinated and/or defecated in their diaper/clothes/bed. Whenever I asked staff about these long delays, they told me that there was not enough staff to take care of everyone. I heard one staff loudly scolding a resident who was for asking her for assistance, telling the resident that there were other people to take care of besides her. I believe that if reasonable resident needs are going unmet (which I witnessed repeatedly), the answer is not to blame/scold the residents for requesting help. The answer is to hire enough staff so that patient needs are met. In sum, this is a glum environment with many unhappy residents and insufficient staff.