Asbury Methodist Village

A family moved into Asbury last week. It was a very smooth process and the staff continues to help my senior family member get accustomed to her surroundings and understand all services available.

Visited in-laws here. Such a nice place to retire at. The building smells good. People are friendly. The entire area is clean and the environment is beautiful. There's a Russian Opera show one Sunday. It was such a treat.

My mother was an inpatient at Asbury Methodist Village Skilled Nursing Facility from the end of Dec. 2022 until April 2023 for physical rehabilitation. She was a stroke victim and was admitted to Asbury with C-Diff which she acquired during her stay at the hospital. Aftertreatment, the C-Diff cleared, and she was able to participate in light physical therapy. Unfortunately, the C-Diff returned, and my mother was given another round of antibiotics, but she did not improve. By this time, she was receiving light physical therapy in her room; however, her health continued to deteriorate until she could no longer participate in physical therapy. The therapists and nurses frequently cited my mother’s age (93) as a major factor in her continued decline. One evening, the sister of a patient passed by our room and asked to pray over my mother. She was an RN and told my brother and me to take her to an infectious disease doctor as my mother’s situation was dire. This was just two days after we met with the doctor at Asbury who offered no solution to our mother’s deteriorating medical status and could not explain why the antibiotics were not working. The social workers wanted us to move her into the nursing home as part of the facility, ignoring the C-Diff as a barrier to physical therapy. Following this new information, we decided to take our mother to an infectious disease doctor outside and independent of Asbury; however, we were required to utilize special medical transportation contracted with Asbury at our expense. The infectious disease doctor prescribed vancomycin, which is imperative to overcome C-Diff. In about 10 days, my mother recovered, but the damage was already done as the duration of the C-Diff in her system took its toll. From what I observed, the rehabilitation room is modern and contains several pieces of modern equipment. Asbury is a good place if you are young or middle aged and need to recover from a medical condition or accident which caused physical impairment. However, if you are elderly and frail, they are neither interested nor vested in your recovery. Rather, the emphasis is to move you out or into the nursing home section. Not recommended for the elderly. As for the doctor, basic knowledge (how did he not know about vancomycin and its prescription for C-Diff) was obviously lacking in addition to his limited time at the premises, thereby creating difficulty contacting him.

Excellent tour which helped me see the residence and community areas that I believe are most important to my parents. Extremely kind and knowledgable staff. Was particularly impressed with the mood of the residents during lunch in the dining room in the memory support area: uplifting, happy, engaged. The nature setting and outdoor gardens and sitting areas are tremendous.

If you are considering Asbury, please do your research carefully. Not only is it expensive, we experienced major failures with nutrition support, nursing care, and simple kindness. My mother came for rehab after a stroke. By the time I removed her from this place, she felt dispirited, hungry and afraid. I was stunned. UPDATE: I've had conversations with Charles, who runs the long term care and rehab wards. My mother was initially assigned to the long term care ward, which set her off on a bad path. When she complained she wasn't able to eat the food her concerns were dismissed; when she ended up with diarrhea from the foods she wasn't supposed to eat and wasn't willing to eat more, she was labeled as difficult. (my mother has allergies to onions and is lactose intolerant; in the pictures you can see the chicken covered with onions, loaded baked potato soup, and you can also see that the tray is missing the hot water (for tea), iced tea, and almond milk called for on the slip) 3 weeks in I had my first care team meeting - my fault, I should have been more insistent that they happen earlier and in more detail - and Charles identified that she was in the wrong ward and moved her to the right one. Her situation improved after the move but her reputation as difficult traveled with her. My conversations with Charles, once we connected, were among my most effective and consistent, and he has reached out to understand what went wrong and how things can be improved in the future. While I appreciate that, there remain problems with the organization with nutritional support, communication, coordination and care.