Avera Prince of Peace

My mother was a resident of long term care for over 3 years. As she aged and her health became worsemember , along with going blind, she was ignored by the staff quite often. Items of clothing, special candy, jewelry, knick knacks were removed from her room. When my sister found the nurse in the hallway, she asked if she could visit about mom. The nurse said she was busy with another patient and would come later. After waiting 2.5 HOURS, the nurse never came to my mother's room. I was told by a staff at POP that a new regulation was to not answer mom's light or go in her from from 6-7 p.m. because they were "understaffed" and it took two staff members to use the mechanical life to put mom in bed. This was filed as a complaint with the State of South Dakota. As mom was moving very close to death, we removed her from the nursing home because she was crying from pain. Although my mom contributed a significant amount when the POP hospice opened, she never got to use the facility. We moved her out to a Sanford hospice houses, where she was given immediate pain relief and loving care and she died peacefully in her sleep. The staff at POP only said they did not realize how close mom was to death. That alone is scary. If you love a friend or family member, do NOT leave them here. Everyday for 2 weeks when I was there in June, I heard "short staffed" every time I had a request. One of the nurses helping mom did not even realize she was blind and just placed her pills at the dinner table and told her to take them. I explained she was blind and the nurse in charged was very surprised! How can that occur that the nurse in charge of my mom didn't even know she was blind. I could give you many more horror stories, but will run out of space.

This facility is severely understaffed to the point where my mother has to sit in her wheelchair and poop in her pants and then continue to sit in her poop for more than an hour before a worker will answer her call light. Workers have been rude and angry at my mom, who has done nothing to deserve their unprofessional behavior. She has a specific diet ordered by her physician, and the dietary workers do not comply with the orders, so she frequently cannot eat anything because she is unable to chew the food. She is afraid of some of the workers, so I suspect that they have abused her while I am not in her room with her. Bad, bad, bad!!!!