Van Duyn Center For Rehabilitation and Nursing

**PSA: This is a LONG review but it needs to be read in full length, especially before anyone sends a loved one here, if you can help it** I am writing this review on behalf of my grandfather. To give a background before his admittance to Van Duyn, he was originally living at home with in-home care for 3 years, happily and healthfully, until COVID hit and resulted in the loss of all in-home aids. Thus, my grandfather had to be admitted to Upstate Hospital simply due to a lack of proper care and no other reasons of his own wellbeing.The morning of his transfer to the hospital, he was eating breakfast with my grandmother, happy, active, and full of life. After two days in Upstate, where he was still just as full-of-life, he was admitted to Van Duyn. From this moment forward, it was the fastest decline I had ever seen in his health, and led to his death not even weeks after joining this facility. The communication was horrendous in trying to talk to any staff. You will rarely know what is occurring with your loved ones in this facility, as you will never talk to the same person, they will never return a single one of your calls, and will transfer you to a new person each phone call, until you are back to the person you started with. The lack of communication and operation of this facility is horrific. To continue with the story of my grandfather, he was prescribed "Risperidone", in which my grandmother was never notified about. When she asked the staff who prescribed it and why, they blamed it on the doctors at Upstate. Immediately after he had left Upstate, before Van Duyn, we were given a discharge paper that included all of his medications, and this was never listed. In efforts to clarify this, we contacted my grandfathers Geriatrician from Upstate, and it in fact was not prescribed and never would have been, due to my grandfathers age and particular brain injury.When I performed research on Van Duyn, they have over 500 claims against them in the last two years, which is more than DOUBLE the NY state average per bed. They have open cases against them for the unnecessary use of mood-altering and stabilizing drugs, which is exactly what they did with my grandfather. It is no lie that his brain injury created him to become more agitated than the healthy individual, but instead of handling it properly, the staff at this horrible facility (Van Duyn) used this medication without proper administration and put my sweet grandfather in a comatose state. This medication is known to prevent people from eating, and with my grandfathers already existing brain injury, this enhanced his resistance of food (in which they were attempting to feed him mechanically softened food). Keep in mind, he was eating solid, cut-up food on his own, two days before admittance to Van Duyn. Once we were notified he was on his death bed, and particularly due to COVID preventing us from being able to see him, we asked Van Duyn to transfer him home so he could be with loved ones. Van Duyn swore to call us back but never returned our calls. The house was set up for all necessary handicap conditions and beyond, due to him living here for 3 years before with in-home care.After completing everything we needed off their transfer-to-home checklist, and setting hospice up OURSELVES with no help from them, they agreed to transport him home at 10am the following morning. Unfortunately, he died that afternoon before we could get him home. If they had answered and returned our calls AT ALL, before we had to call for the numerous time demanding to speak to someone about his transportation home, he could have been with his loved ones. To top off the horrific role they played in my grandfathers expedited death, they lost all of his belongings after he passed away. We came to pick it up THE DAY they called us, but when we arrived, they told us they cannot find any of his belongings. This included a very sentimental shawl, which was the ONLY thing my grandmother wanted following his death. This is a horrible facility and they created the most heartbreaking thing my family and I had ever had to experience. They made the death process much harder than it ever had to be, after they basically led him to his death, and I would NEVER wish this facility upon my worst enemy. Please take my word for it and don't send your loved ones here. This place deserves to be shut down and I will not stop trying until they are. Again, PLEASE do your research before letting your loved one stay here.