Low care for a High price, Our Mother stayed at Illowra in Waverly for about a year, She was accepted in January which we were very happy about as it is in our area and we could be close to her, at the start it all looked very nice, staff are lovely and doing there best to manage, but came to realise that this place is a low care facility but for a high cost, We were paying all out of pocket about $2000 a week, but thought that was fine as they were looking after her, We had a meeting with Illowra team after the respite period had nearly finish to see about if she could stay there to live her days, even though she was progressing with dementia, they said yes its called ageing in place and they have a dementia ward downstairs, so we agreed to have mum stay there permanently. 12 months later (over Christmas period) mum had some issues with some medication and needed to change as it could be an issue, No doctors or geriatricians were available so they called out the FGS flying geriatrician squad, Im not sure who they are but you take there advice recommended. He recommenced she come off this mediation and didn't know what to replace it with but was only a low does, so we did without, A few weeks later mum had some changes in her behaviour and being unsettled. In the new year we managed to she her regular geriatrician and he diagnosed her with Dementia which we knew was progressing with, Managed to start getting her replacement medication back on track but was still unsettled and Illowra Waverly started pushing that she would have to move to another facility (this came as a big shock after we had had a discussion 13 months earlier about mum ageing in place there, was in our area and they are suggesting to move her to another Uniting an hours drive away. Mum ended up in hospital for three months trying to get her settled (while in hospital you still have to pay for the room a little less then the full $2000 per month but they don't charge you the additional service fee- which is another contentious charge) we ended up having to stop paying at Illowra, move mums things out and she stayed in hospital till she recovered. Now I am just writing this so others hopefully don't have to go through all the same stress. I'm sure some clients are very happy at Illowra if they are low care. But some things to point out There arent as many staff there 1 staff (not a nurse) for 15 residents, they seem to be running around trying to look after them 1 Nurse for 45 residents, they also don't always help the staff all they time. There is a doctor that sometimes comes once a week but not always, we never had any feedback from him in the time. There aren't cameras in common areas so if there are any incidents they can't see, If staff aren't around so they can't report on anything that happens (mum had a couple of falls over her time, she isn't frail but they couldn't tell us anymore) There is no keypad lock in the lift so residents can go up and down to other levels even to the basement carpark (mum had a morning were she woke up and there were no staff in the building as they were dealing with another resident, she ended up in the basement.) The food isn't cooked onsite it is trucked in and reheated. Activities list is written up each week like a roster but a lot of the time they don't happen. There is no activities on the weekends even though they charge you an additional service charge to do so. The staff are lovely and do try very hard to looks after the residents but looks like they burn out pretty quickly with the workload. The rooms are very nice and renovated. We are still paying off the room for the period mum was is hospital. There is a google review from one of there staff Yulia with a 5 star and Uniting have responded saying thank you for your five star review, so I would take the reviews with a grain of salt. I hope no one else has to go through 8 months of stress like this. Yours Kindly Simon Hart
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