CEDARHURST OF COLUMBIA

My mom has been at cedar hurst for 4 years. I must say they keep the place very clean and well decorated with hair and nail care on site. The kitchen and serving staff are wonderful. They keep the holidays well and provide many different engagements for the residents. Great place to have a family member to be taken care of.

What a great little gem of a place located in the great city of Columbia! The building is beautiful and I have been so impressed with the updates to the exterior of the building this fall and the inside of the building with the decorations and updates they have planned for the interior. There have been lots of changes to the workers there, but all seem to be for the best. The reach outs and calls from the corporate team and those who are there working has been a relief knowing the residents have great people watching out for them. The residents are so warm and welcoming. Some workers who deserve a shout out are Abby at the front desk, Courtney Activities Director, Alisha Activities Director, Erica the nurse manager, and Teresita, Bree, and Karri the nurse aides.

The staff at Cedarhurst are amazing. For our loved one, the Director of Nursing, Financial Manager, and Terrell (Sales) went above and beyond to assist with a very complex issue. In addition the nurses and aids were available and compassionately aided our loved one when he needed it most. We are forever grateful for Cedarhurst and highly recommend them to anyone needing assisted living care.

I am currently a resident of Cedarhurst of Columbia and I want to report the excellent job that Cedarhurst of Columbia performed on September 29th during their annual vaccination clinic. I have been a resident here for 3 years and this is the third vaccination clinic I have participated in. Previous years have experienced various set backs. This year was amazing! The staff took particular care in explaining when and what the vaccinations would be and double and triple checked that they had all of the required paperwork ready. Residents were reminded the evening before that they needed to wear short sleeved shirts and that they would be routed to the room where the injections were being administered. On arrival, all was very well organized. The Director of Nursing, Jess, did an amazing job with taking great care of all of us with games and attention afterwards! I have loved my stay here during the past three years and I truly never want to leave. I love my home which is Cedarhurst!

UPDATE: shortly after posting this review, the director called me to address my concerns. The community at Cedarhurst is wonderful—staff and residents. This review is not directed at the people who live and work at Cedarhurst. I would give them a 5 star review + (or a thousand star) for their kindness, caring, and love. Unfortunately, the Cedarhurst corporation prioritizes their greed, not giving the good staff (that goes above and beyond) the resources they need. I have posted a few pictures to show their loving kindness and how much they love my mother. My main concerns are professional sanitizing during & after contagion, security, and family and healthcare professionals having access after hours, and the unhealthy food. The director and I had a good talk and I’m reassured that there are solutions in the works. I hope to be able to give a better update soon and to add stars. The building is lovely but there are problems. Weekly cleaning is included in the cost and the housekeeper does an excellent job. Unfortunately, if there are unhygienic conditions in the apartment between weekly cleanings, there’s unlikely to be someone who’ll clean. They were on lockdown because of norovirus, one of the most contagious viruses, spread initially from feces and then through touch and surfaces. The virus can remain on surfaces for two weeks. A contagion requires professionals with PPE to thoroughly clean and sanitize the whole building. My husband and I ended up catching norovirus. I had to be hospitalized excruciating pain and suffering and had to be hospitalized. The security is poor, I won’t detail the problems publicly for obvious reasons. Ironically, people who should be able to get in the building—family and healthcare professionals—have difficulty getting in the building after 8 pm. Someone needs to be at the front desk 24/7 and should be a 24 hour number to call with a human being answering every single time. I had to hire Visiting Angels for in-home care, to do light cleaning, provide companionship, and help my mother with basic self-care. I got a call from Visiting Angels that my mother’s blood oxygen level had plunged and she was panicking about breathing, which makes it hard to breathe, which creates more panic. The Angels said she needed more comfort care meds to help with her breathing and her panic. In other words, my mother was suffering. I called hospice and the nurse at Compassus and he kindly offered to go to Cedarhurst to check on my mother. He couldn’t get in. He tried several times. I called Cedarhurst repeatedly to get someone to let him in and there was no answer. A healthcare professional could not get in. Everyone was doing their job, Compassus, Visiting Angels, and the staff at Cedarhurst—but the staff cannot do the work of two or three people at the same time. The people who aren’t doing their job are the obscenely rich and greedy people of Cedarhurst corporate. We’re paying $7k a month and there’s no one to let a hospice nurse in and no one answering the phone when my mother is in distress. I want yo emphasize again that this review is not directed at the Cedarhurst community, which really is a community in all the ways we hope for. The staff and residents have a created a culture of love that can’t be faked and I have no regrets about placing my mother there. P.S. There isn’t, as claimed, “all day dining.” The food is unhealthy and unappealing. But the food is a question for another day.