Palace Nursing & Rehab Center

At first glance you think this is a great rehab facility, then as you get closer you see it’s just all a façade. The place looks very nice and kept clean, food is good, rooms are small but comfortable. However nurses and CNAs don’t want to be bothered with patients who need real looking after.
My father went there after a very serious brain injury, craniotomy and a month in a hospital, where they weren’t sure he’d make it. He needed total assistance when he first arrived. The physical therapy got my dad moving, the speech therapy got him slowly communicating again. But that’s NOT what the nurses and CNAs want. They like patients who sit quietly in their rooms not bothering anyone. The only time my father was out of bed was when we visited, (which was everyday) otherwise, they keep their patients in bed or in wheelchairs, with brakes on! Even when you are there, they discourage you from getting them out of bed. One nurse in particular once tried to put him to bed at 3:30 in the afternoon. CNAs hide in empty rooms to use their phone. I saw this happen more than once when visiting my father in the late evening hours.
Due to the brain injury he would sometimes get disoriented, agitated, and wanting to go home, not able to understand as to why he needed to stay… he’d hold on to furniture and not want to move. 3 – 4 nurses would corral around him to get him to move, it’s obvious he’d get agitated. He saw them as a threat! The same nurse Mariela who put him to bed at 3:30, sent him to the hospital twice as psychiatric. Of course he’d get sent back the same day with no psychiatric symptoms. so then they Xanax’d him at drs order, (which by the way in 3 weeks of being there everyday we NEVER ONCE MET DR MELGAR) and we’re not sure he ever saw my father while he was there. Then they’d have him sleeping or sitting in the wheelchair drooling all day. Just as they like, so they don’t have to bother.
When you buzz for a nurse you’d be sure to wait over 20 minutes, and they always tell you «I’ll be right back» another 20 minutes. Puja, the building supervisor on the 2^nd flor has the nastiest disposition when it comes to speaking to family if you are advocating for your family member.
My dad had an alarm attached to him in case he got up, since he was unsteady on his feet and still in the process of rehab. And Xanax’d… He tried to go to the bathroom one morning and ended up falling and breaking his brow and orbital bone. and sent to the hospital where he was no longer their problem. This is someone who was moving VERYYYYY SLOWLY! Any nurse COULD have gotten there before the fall if they RESPONDED TIMELY to the alarm! We are certain the alarm sounded and it wasn’t until they heard the thump that someone went to see what happened. In fact we wonder if letting him fall was their way of getting him out! Don’t be fooled by appearances here. It’s not as great as it seems. Not everything that glitters is gold!

People are confused, there is two parts to The Palace, you have the Senior Living which is very nice and expensive. Then you have the rehab center, which is not as nice.
When you call for the nurse, it takes them approximately 20 minutes to show up. By then the patient may have peed on themselves. This is why they put diapers on every patient. When my mom calls the nurse, it takes the nurse normally 15 — 20 minutes to show up to place the bed pan. Once my mom was done she called the nurse; it took another 20 minutes for the nurse to show up. In the meantime my mom was sitting on the bed pan all that time waiting for her. It’s horrible. This is supposed to be one of the best rehab center based on the reviews I saw so can you imagine how the worst ones are.
I was told that one nurse assist 8 patients. The majority of the patients need a crane or total assistant. It takes the nurse 20 minutes or more with each patient. They should give each nurse at least 5 patients or hire more nurses.