Thanks, Barbie. I really need a night's sleep of more than 3-4 hours, so I am going to bed early. The current facility is lovely and has great meals and lovely rooms, however, some things we discovered at current assisted living facility:
- Their evacuation plan in case of a hurricane was a statement they made you sign when you checked someone in. It said something like, "All responsible persons for residents agree to come and pick up their relative or loved one within 24 hours notice in case of an impending need to evacuate the facility."
- This facility had no one at the front desk between 7:00 pm and 7:00 am. The door was unlocked and anyone could come or go without a code or a key. In other words, anyone off the street could wander around the public spaces and halls all night. Even during the day, no one stops people who come in. And I never saw any building security personnel, outside or inside.
- When I asked the nursing supervisor which of the five levels of care my aunt and uncle were paying for that the facility offered, she could not find anything in her records that told her what that was, so she said she would have to check!!! And she was scheduling caregivers and supervising all resident care.
- The private caregivers we hired were assisting with all showers, dressing, and other services the facility was supposed to be providing. The nursing supervisor said this was because it was "easier." Obviously.
- The assisted living facility had not had a medical evaluation of my aunt and uncle performed before signing them up to their apartment. A medical evaluation that includes screening for dementia is required by Florida law. The person who accepted their application and took their $3,500 entry fee, plus their check for the first month's fee of $9,000 was a marketing person, not a medical person. And no one else in the place caught this, so they broke Florida law.
https://seniorjustice.com/1823-form-ass ... y-florida/ - With great difficulty, I got a copy of the contact they signed. My aunt signed in a lot of places and initialed each page, but my uncle's signature (which is tiny and easily recognizable) appeared only a couple of times. The rest of the times, his signature did not match his real signature, so someone else signed this contact for him. Basically, they let a couple with dementia sign a contact without making sure they were competent and even forged his name. Or maybe my slimy cousin did this, but he had no authority to act for them as he did not have POA--we did.
And this is just what we discovered in three days. There was likely more. It was quite an education for us.