The Watermark at the Pearl

MeNotYou

I was paying over $16K a month for my wife’s memory care here. It was advertised as a luxury senior living community. At three times the Oregon state average, I expected to have the finest care for my bedbound, helpless and all too soon to die wife of over 50 years. That was not the case. The care was totally unacceptable and at times truly reprehensible. My wife lost 15 pounds in her last three weeks of life here. It was because she was seldom fed unless I was there to feed her. Never once did a caregiver approach our table and remind me that it was their job; not mine. Mostly, the young caregivers seemed wholly untrained and genuinely frightened of my wife who was nearing death. The one nurse with which I had any contact seemed to be in training rather than be in charge. When I showed one of the managers medical wastes left on my wife’s pillow, she without consulting the nurse, quickly refuted my facts and denied that was the nurse’s actions. The two floor managers refused to listen to any criticism concerning health and safety issues for clients like my wife. Other resident families confided to me that they had contacted the appropriate state regulatory agencies too over similar concerns. The Watermark’s top management seemed to want to run the memory care unit as a hotelier might want to run the luxury senior living facilities offered upstairs. There was little in the design and operations of the facility that reflected an understanding of what dementia centered planning and design required. My helpless bed-bound wife was not offered the simplest of basic services like assistance while eating, everyday dental care and customary help with personal grooming and healthcare routines. She came to meals dressed looking like the poorest of people rather than a successful businesswoman with a fashionable wardrobe. Overall, the residents were treated as difficult and troublesome children not dying patients with advancing dementia. On one occasion, I arrived late in the evening and found my wife was sitting alone in her wheelchair in the public area with her face and clothes covered with encrusted food from her last meal, hours ago. Had she tried to feed herself with one side of her body frozen and the other substantially disabled? She appeared stunned and did not recognize me at first. The caregivers didn’t rush to explain and offered no apologies as I returned my wife to her room to clean her up and put her to bed. I had then to retrieve them from elsewhere in the building to help me do so. They seldom if ever responded to her call button which both myself and the visiting hospice nurse tried repeatedly to use. The night my wife died, I had to help lift her dead body into the mortician's body bag. There was no 24-hour nurse, as advertised, available to help us. The one late-night caregiver witnessing this seemed reluctant to help and was clearly traumatized by the situation. On the day that I knew my wife was actively dying, I had to plead for special dispensation from the CEO for me to remain with my wife overnight. The controversy of my appeal was that it was not part of the company's protocols. They also frowned on me using special utensils, special feeding techniques and special clothing protectors. They had the opinion that it was dehumanizing. Probably it was more shockingly illustrative of the inevitable decline ahead for the other clients and loved ones in the facility. It was not a promotional type of scene for their brochures. I have reported the facility to the BBB and the Oregon State's Attorney's office. Both assured me that they would follow up for me. The investigation by several state regulatory agencies is ongoing based on the evidence I provided. I was never once offered an insightful justification, a heartfelt apology or final condolences from anyone at the Watermark. I am writing this because no one else deserves to be treated as badly as my wife was in her last dying days. If your loved ones are truly loved by you, don't leave them in the memory care facilities of The Watermark in the Pearl.