Silver Maples Residential Care

Our mother was eighty-six years old when she moved into Silver Maples. She still wanted to be in her own home, but we felt she required some assistance in day to day living. Once she adjusted to the move, she liked it there. She enjoyed her relationship with the other residents and the staff. She particularly liked the male owner who worked at Silver Maples. It seemed that all of those people were fond of her. She happily took part in the activities. The menu was rotated on a three-week schedule. Quite a few of the meals weren't to her liking, but generally she was content at Silver Maples until her situation changed. Five months after her move, the COVID-19 pandemic began. Through no fault of anyone, after a number of months, Covid became a serious problem, and necessary restrictions on visitors were a hardship for residents and their family members. They certainly caused stress for our mother and us. Unfortunately, at a certain point, our mother's health began to rapidly decline. It was soon obvious to all that she needed a much higher level of care than Silver Maples Assisted Living was set up to provide. As a result, a big problem suddenly faced Silver Maples, our mother, and our family. It was a classic Catch 22 situation. Because of surging Covid, nursing homes seemed to be closed to incoming patients. Various rules, and other issues made it impossible for our mother to safely temporarily live in a family member's home. In other words, she couldn't get into a nursing home, and the normal level of care at Silver Maples was not sufficient to protect her safety and wellbeing. None of that was the fault of Silver Maples, anyone else. What we feel was the fault of Silver Maples was that the owners didn't seem to grasp the reality that they were temporarily stuck in an unusual situation in which in the interest of the reputation of Silver Maples and the safety and well being of our mother, they were going to have to temporarily make special accommodations for her despite the fact that Silver Maples is an assisted living facility. They were well aware that our mother had to get out of bed, or out of her chair, to go to the bathroom-----and that she was very prone to fall. Nevertheless, they didn't take steps which were sufficient to prevent the following: Our mother fell many times. The Golden Cross ambulance and EMT's were called to assist and several times she needed to be transported to the hospital emergency room. In summary, in fairness, we emphasize our opinion that in normal times Silver Maples seems fine for assisted living appropriate residents. However, Silver Maples failed to adapt to the reality of an unusual set of circumstances. Our mother suffered because of that. Unfortunately, none of us knows when another unusual situation is going to come up.