Complain about a product or service

Grace Plaza Nursing And Rehabilitation Center

Great Neck, NY

Elaine of Los Angeles, CA July 9, 2008

My mom broker her hip on 4/15/08 and had hip replacement surgery and was sent to Grace Plaza to recover. My mom had Alzheimer's. At Grace Plaza, they did not follow the surgeon's discharge instructions to immobilize her leg while seated and in bed. None of her children knew that those discharge instructions were issued. When we visited, we never realized that her orders were not followed. All we noticed was that she was catatonic and was taken off her Alzheimer's medications.

I spoke to the attending doctor, Myles Gombert, and he stated that he thought the meds would be minimally effective. I asked him to put her back on, which he did, and the change was remarkable. She was able to talk, joke, etc. My brother and I noticed that her had had a large contusion on it and when we asked, no one knew what had happened. My mom was unable to wheel her own wheelchair or even move without assistance, so a nurse HAD to be there when this massive contusion was incurred.

When I was on this visit to NY in May, I attended my mom's physical therapy session and noticed that her leg on the side of the broken hip looked crumpled and askew. I asked the therapist if that was normal and she said we may want to have an x-ray as it looked like her hip had rotated. I left NY on May 8th after telling my brothers, who live there, to contact the surgeon to order an xray. The surgeon asked if her leg had the immobilization device in place - which was the first time any of us had heard that this was a required thing. On Friday May 9th, after midnight NY time, my brother called me to tell me that our mom was in the Emergency Room at North Shore hospital getting an x ray. None of us knew why.

I called Grace Plaza and the night nurse said it was because she was in pain. We found out that our immobile mother had her hip broken again sometime. Grace Plaza has no record of it. When I asked for an accident report, I was sent one regarding her hand that had false information on it, as it stated my other brother was called at home to be notified of it. They never even noticed it until my brother and I pointed it out as it was a blood balloon extending down her fingers and over the large part of the back of her hand. After the second hip break, we were told that she could not be operated on and would have to heal this mangled way.

We took Mom to a different nursing home, which was great. She stopped eating, was depressed, in a huge amount of pain and died on June 20th. I called NY state department of health and they stated that the could not find any thing wrong and that the records at Grace Plaza show that the immobilization device was there at all times. My brother is a Federal Marshall and would be able to testify that is not the case. I am the former Vice President of Loss Prevention (fraud, employee embezzlement, etc) for Circuit City Stores and also would be able to testify.

We have no pictures from the waist down of our mom to prove this all. I do not know if Grace Plaza has any CCTV in place. Certainly the physical therapist and several nurses could be called to testify individually. I sent a certified letter to Grace Plaza asking for the accident report from the hip break and still do not have it.

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