Green Acres Cedar Springs

Mark Breymeyer

The facility is clean and well kept. The staff tries, but missing almost every other mark possible. We moved my grandmother into GA Cedar Springs after our grandfather passed. She had dementia and was on their memory care side of the facility. We chose this company, and location as the Administrator was an old coworker of a family member from a previous assisted living company, and we felt we could trust her. We knew this move out of her long time marital home should be her last, and GA promised they could handle the medical needs, daily care needs, and end of life needs of someone with my grandmothers level of dementia. Wow... Shockingly wrong! Upon moving in, it was quickly discovered that she was the resident with the most advanced memory care needs, and disease. It was obvious within just a few days that GA staff was not properly trained to deal with my grandmother's care, and the speed of which the leadership team was training their DCWs (Direct Care Worker) was almost 0mph. When we noticed a lack of knowledge, we asked what the training plan was for their DCWs to get up to speed and par, and the Medical Director told us, "I found them a great article online for them to read." We followed up with questions of "how do you know a team member has read the required material," or "how do you test they have gained adequate understanding of the material or task?" The Medical Director informed us that she "keeps a list in her head as tracking them all down is difficult to do." Many problems arose in my grandmother's care. They include staff hazing of other staff leading to diminished care, falsifying of incident reports and the reprimanding of the DCW that reported the falsified report instead of the offending DCW, refusal of DCWs to bring my grandmother to breakfast on time and then not feeding her the scheduled meal, DCWs not following state guidelines/regulations when it comes to care checks and med passes (both items this facility has been cited for by the state in the past) among many other egregious errors. We tried to advocate for my grandmother at every turn. As we realized GA had misrepresented their ability to care for my grandmother, and their leadership was not going to step up we came in one morning to find my grandmother had fallen out of bed during the night, and upon review of the actions of the DCWs, they had not checked on her for hours. The rest of the residents had finished breakfast, and they never went to see if she was even awake for breakfast. The last documented check of her was in the early hours of the morning, before shift change. We spoke with the owner of the company who minimized our experience and called it "a lack of communication." In the 8 months my grandmother was there, we were there EVERY day and communicating with the staff. He promised change and follow up conversations. He said he would reach out to schedule another meeting and see how things had improved. He never reached out, and the team just ignored us. We tried to move her to a new facility but her disease was too advanced and no one else would take her. We called in hospice care, which we regrettably should have done much sooner. She finally had the care she needed, but it was in no way provided by GA, by that time, they were a landlord only. If you are looking at GA Cedar Springs, my family urges you to look elsewhere. This team is not qualified to see your loved ones care through the end of life. Their team is untrained, and unqualified. We found much better facilities, at the same price point with staff that includes multiple actual nurses, a rigorous training program, and policies in place to respond to issues, incidents, and errors in a professional, efficient, and lasting way. Green Acres Cedar Springs has proven themselves to not be able to provide any of that reassurance. You owe your loved one a better place, and a better team. We regret our time there.