Heritage Harbour Health and Rehabilitation Center

When I recently visited my relative, he was lying on the mattress with a hospital gown on the upper torso and completely naked waist down - no sheet, no diapers, no underwear. Pretty appalling. Today I have been trying to get in touch with him by phone (somehow his phone continually gets "lost") and calledSEVENTEEN times! The staff hung up me/kept me on hold indefinitely/called wrong patient/called wrong unit/said he was asleep/said he was on the phone (the phone was "busy" all day long yet one nurse said he was on the phone and another said shortly thereafter said he was asleep.). I asked them to check to see if the phone was working and they said it was but then when I immediately called it was still busy. There is something suspicious in not being able to get in touch with a patient over a period of 6 hours. Three days ago I went through the same thing: none of the staff would put me through with the same excuses as above. After rudely talking to me, I called the administrator and received attention immediately as was able to talk to my relative.

The staff seemed nice when we were visiting, and my grandfather would've NEVER complained... he was the easiest patient on the planet... He was admitted to this facility with Stage 4B blood cancer by an oncologist at AAMC in June. 'Use it or lose it' was the mentality... learn to walk again or you won't ever be able to. This was all after his CHOP Chemo treatment. The strongest Chemo treatment available... essentially 3 in a single day. He loved the physical therapists and speech therapists... the nurses were questionable. He was given 3 or 4 blood transfusions in this facility, which were not done by his oncologist, nor did the oncologist know about them. He was also treated for a hemorrhoid via suppositories for THREE WEEKS... (any over the counter drug you take states if it doesn't work in X days please consult your doctor) - never once was that area examined by a physician... it was not a hemorrhoid. It was a wound that was INFECTED with (and I quote) 'a toxic infection' - after being rushed to the ER due to an elevated and erratic heart rate (from 90 resting to 160 resting) caused by the infection. He was put on antibiotics, but being a cancer patient and having an infection, a toxic one, is an additional uphill battle to fight. Each day, his heath deteriorated more, and rapidly. He never returned to the rehab facility. Within a week of being admitted back to the hospital with the infection mentioned above, he passed away. Unfortunately, being a cancer patient, no autopsy would be done to determine what exactly caused him to pass... but I'd bet my bottom dollar it was the infection. When he arrived at the rehab facility, within days, he was walking up and down the hall, he was advancing - he was doing great! - again, the physical therapists were amazing. With the facilities negligence, he obtained an infection that his body could not handle in addition to the cancer.