Grand Boulevard Health and Rehabilitation Center

Summary of experiences with Grand Boulevard:Some staff does a very diligent job; many others are not as attentive or responsive to patients’ needs. Extended periods of time to respond to the nurses’ call button, often turning off the call light, promising to return “in a few minutes” and don’t return until the call button is re-pressed or 30-45 minutes have passed. On a number of occasions, my wife had to call me by cell phone so I would then call the nurses’ station to get her a response.Inconsistent follow through with patients’ needs/requests. For example, leaving the bed table, call button, and bed control out of reach after changing the bed or attending to the patient.Meals have been, in in my wife’s experience, to a large degree, inedible because of being cold, lacking margarine or butter, and no offers of condiments which are generally always on the delivery carts. Asking for the meal to be reheated was sometimes successful, other times not. We understand that she has been on a renal diet, which frankly sucks, but is it not better to have the patient eat SOMETHING rather than refuse to eat at all? Not suggesting ignoring the prescribed diet, but occasionally they should be able to have a more liberalized choice. This was the case when she was at UAB and Lakeshore, but both of those facilities seemed to have slightly higher staffing levels or a better patient to staff ratio.In the case of taking the word of staff over patients, staff always wins. One case in point was the issue about my wife refusing to take a shower, an event that I witnessed that did not happen as discussed on June 5th.Promises to schedule showers on specific days do not happen unless I or my wife pushed the issue. In just short of 7 weeks as a patient, my wife received 4 showers.Some CNAs and nurses are exceptionally good; I can’t praise Gretchen and Reba enough. Gretchen and Reba are consistent and caring…. always (in our experience.) Donna is excellent in following up on patient needs and “fixing” problems. Always cheerful and positive.Not being able to make a timely exit after 4 pm due to “door alarms” is particularly annoying. I understand the need to keep dementia patients from wandering out of the building, but it is no less annoying. Don’t have any suggestions for an alternative.Finally, it will be interesting to see what the CT scan results are after having complained about my wife's chest pains and coughing for the past 4 weeks with no definitive action taken until she is discharged.One particular annoyance was why I had to, for nearly 4 weeks, drive from the north side of the bay to GB to take her for dialysis when another GB patient was being transported for her appointment (scheduled about 10 minutes prior to my wife’s). This resulted in an extra 58 mile round trip for me 3 days a week. The past two weeks, GB has been transporting her with the other GB patient to the same treatment site.