Grace Plaza Nursing And Rehabilitation Center

My father, at 89, was in fantastic physical shape. The only operation he ever had was a cataract operation when he was 86. He fell down in front of the house because there is a platform that had been recently built as a wheelchair ramp for my mother. He actually got right up. He had fallen down many times over the years, without any broken bones, and gets right up. His neighbor, Marcus, is a caring individual with whom he has a warm relationship, and he's a Transit Cop. Marcus was worried about my dad being injured so he called an ambulance just to be sure Dad was ok. My sister came out from Manhattan to Long Island Jewish to wait with him in the emergency room for X-rays to make sure he was ok. He stayed for tests at LIJ for a week or so and he was ok.

After being at LIJ, it was recommended he go to Rehab. There was not really much wrong with him, and he had recently been diagnosed by his neurologist, Dr. Anthony ** in Lake Success, NY, with only a mild age-related dementia, normal for his age. His mental faculties were quite good for his age, and physically he is unusually healthy. He was on Aricept to keep this diagnosed age-related dementia at a minimum. It seemed to help right away (he'd been on it a year or so). Anyway, my father was, at the hospital's urging, placed in Grace Plaza for "Rehab." The doctor there insisted on going against the instructions we had from Dr. Anthony **, his neurologist, and my father's GP, Dr. Robert **, also in Lake Success New York, near New Hyde Park. At Grace Plaza, Dr. ** "caring" for him.

Dr. ** put him on Welbutrin, because we'd suggested that since before he fell he'd been sleeping a lot and was somewhat depressed since my mother passed away, and he'd been on a low dose of Zoloft which didn't seem to be helping any more. Anyway, Dr. ** took him off his Aricept against our wishes and the wishes of his doctors and put him on Hhuge doses of welbutrin. I know Welbutrin because I have taken it, and 150 mg. is not a starting dose for a 140-lb., 5/8" man of almost 90. (I am a 170-lb woman, 5'9", 56 years old, and after 12 years I was only taking 100 mg. of it.) My father got very, very bad, so bad he did not recognize anyone, so he coudn't even pick up a fork and lift it to his mouth. My father had been playing cards with the neighbors, but now he couldn't even recognize them. Dr. ** insisted this was normal, and would hush us when we said, "No you do not understand, our father is in very very good health, and almost perfect mental health, especially for his age, and there wasn't anything wrong with him when he got here, except for having been on bed rest in LIJ for a week."

I begged Dr. ** to take him off such a high dose of Welbutrin. My father did a lot of strange things: he was exposing himself to the nurses (my father is a very proper and dignified person who would be so embarrassed if he knew this) and was unable to sleep, and worst of all he'd developed all kinds of nervous movements and tics, and shook so badly he couldn't hold a spoon. He was in diapers; we'd never heard of such a thing for my father! Repeatedly, I begged Dr. ** to follow the instructions of the doctors who knew him (Dr. ** was his and my mother's GP for about 20 years), but Dr. ** out and out acted indignant that we weren't cooperating and refused.

He also refused to give my father his Aricept, which we saw did my dad a lot of good immediately when he began it, but Dr. ** said wasn't useful and he didn't believe in it. We knew it helped him; we saw it with our own eyes! Worst of all, my father couldn't barely do anything. He was an outstanding golfer; he was now unable to throw a giant Pilates ball across the room. It was so sad. Finally we got him out of there. He was in diapers (no reason for this) and couldn't hold a fork to his own mouth. Could not say more than one coherent sentence. Next day after he's released I took him to Dr.**, the neurologist. Dr. ** is shocked, they put him on Welbutrin, and especially such an inappropriately high dose! He said, all these problems could be because of the Welbutrin!

I was stunned. Dr. ** put him back on the Aricept right away and over the course of the following months, gently weaned him off the Welbutrin. My dad got better, but the Welbutrin left him with a permanent tremor, in diapers, and much worse than he was when he went in. I would say his dementia went from 10% to 90% and back down to 50% or 60%, but he never really recovered. He has not walked since, and uses a hospital bed in the living room. I am upset about this, and believe it was the fault of Grace Plaza. Everyone knew there was something creepy about Dr.** and was trying to leave. Saddest of all were the lovely PT people, who felt they were helping, but there was really no need to, because the patients were only this bad because of mistreatment by this creepy doctor and nursing home.

The whole thing was like a scene out of a horror movie. One lovely older woman whose husband as there was in tears every evening when she left him there; she hated abandoning him to this creepy place where they did what they felt like and did not listen to the recommendations of the doctors and people who knew the patients.

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.