Smoke and Mirrors — “An investor’s dream was my memory care nightmare”

RCFEs or residential care facilities for the elderly are designed to provide services like memory care and assisted living. This is a rapidly growing industry due to the extensive demand for such care facilities in the US. Unfortunately, a section of this industry is more focused on maximizing their profits than providing quality care to elderly citizens.

In Santa Clara County, for instance, the average monthly cost for memory care is close to $6500. If you have long-term care insurance, you can file a claim with the help of a San Jose Long Term Care Insurance Claims Lawyer. But otherwise, there isn’t any financial assistance available for such facilities.

Carmen Brammer, a political strategist and advocate who is also the caregiver for her mother, shared her horrific experience with the Atria Evergreen Valley memory care facility in San Jose. According to her, property managers run these facilities on behalf of real estate investors. And while they try to portray an image of being a nurturing environment with the resident’s health and wellbeing assuming the greatest priority, the reality is very different.

Brammer’s mother stayed at the Atria Evergreen for nine months from December 2020 to October 2021 – a period that she terms as a nightmare. The elderly lady faced several traumatic events during her stay, some of which Brammer shared to give a glimpse of the many issues plaguing this industry.

Her mother contracted COVID within the first month of moving into the facility. This was undoubtedly shocking news for the family, more so because these facilities were under lockdown to prevent the spread of the virus. Moreover, she couldn’t get inside the facility before April 2021. And when she did, she was aghast to see the conditions her mother was living in.

In her own words, her mother “had been placed in a space like leftover garbage. Her bed was squeezed against a wall with no windows. Her headboard was a few feet from the bathroom door. The paint throughout the room was chipped. On the bathroom door was a mysterious hole at eye level. It was all so depressing.”

In addition, her mother also suffered a fall due to the caregiver’s negligence. With the COVID concerns making it unsafe to go to the ER and Atria Evergreen lacking any onsite medical equipment, she could only pray that her mother didn’t suffer from any internal injuries.

But that wasn’t the end. She later came to know that they were bathing her mother only once a week while doing an assessment review. Unfortunately, such unhygienic practices are rather common in the RCFE industry, although there’s no clear logic as to why they shouldn’t be bathed regularly. In fact, this lack of cleanliness is a major cause of ailments like urinary tract infections. When Brammer insisted her mother be bathed every day, the facility quickly increased the monthly cost by $1000.

At the same time, it should be known that the caregivers and even the head of the memory care at Atria Evergreen weren’t licensed, medical professionals. In other words, people with no medical background were looking after her mother and other residents suffering from ailments like Alzheimer’s and dementia.

When Brammer’s daughter decided to surprise the elderly lady with a manicure on her birthday, they were shocked. Her nails were packed with an unknown hard and dark matter. And it was sure to be embedded under her nails for quite a while because it caused her mother to flinch in pain when they tried to get it out.

Although she tried to schedule meetings with the administrative team to voice her concerns, she couldn’t get an appointment until August 2021. And when she did, she learned that her mother hadn’t been vaccinated yet, even though it was eight months since she moved into the facility. She sent several emails to the higher-ups of the facility with her concerns, but not much was done to address them.

Finally, she met Jason Walthour, Atria’s Regional Vice President, in September 2021 and informed him that she would move her mother out of the facility due to the issues faced. In a later email, Walthour admitted that the room her mother resided in was meant for one person, not two. Despite paying a high price for over nine months, her mother received an unacceptably low level of service.

It’s time for the industry to undergo a massive change to prevent such unfortunate experiences. The priority should be on providing quality care and accommodation to the elderly population of the country and not on reaping the maximum profits.