St Joseph Hospice

We hired St Joseph’s recently for my Grandmother’s hospice care. Originally, we chose this company because the medical director was already my grandmother’s doctor and made home visits (which he no longer provides.) Also, the company was willing to work with our already established routine. Our grandmother is in end stages of Alzheimer’s and became bedridden after breaking her second hip. We have prevented UTI’s and bedsores which is directly attributed to the personal family care we provide and the great attention we take in keeping her schedule. It should be mentioned that my father is a M.D. and has extensive knowledge in how to prevent bed bound patients from getting very ill, as he deals with bedsores and wounds almost on a daily basis. We also have a private CNA to make sure my Grandmother is never left alone. We requested to have a CNA at the house promptly at 8:30 each morning. The first CNA that was assigned to us was very nice but as she had another family before my grandmother and was unable to get there promptly at 8:30am and could not come every day. The second one assigned to us immediately came in to the house not wanting to do anything and giving orders about “how we should” care for my grandmother. Apparently, as my family is fortunate to have additional help, the CNA’s assigned to us thought that meant that our private nurse should do everything and they didn’t have to be there on time, let alone help bathe or feed my Grandmother. The 2nd CNA was continually late each morning and excuses ranged from being out late the night before to simply stating that there was no reason for her to be there that early as our CNA was getting my grandmother out of bed anyways. When she was informed that being prompt was necessary she took it out on my grandmother. It resulted in her scratching my grandmother and causing a 2 inch gash down her arm from her fake nails. In the 6 months my grandmother has been bedridden, our family and private nurse has not once scratched our grandmother and this “trained” hospice CNA did. Against our better judgement, we did not immediately fire St. Joseph’s and we were assigned a new CNA. They assured us nothing like this would ever happen again and a CNA would be there every morning promptly at 8:30. The new CNA was on time and helpful for 2 weeks. The 3rd week she showed up late every day and started sitting in her car for up to 30 minutes before even coming in. When we contacted the administrative staff at St. Joseph they had no reply for the unprofessional nature of their staff or the lack of organization and stated that they would no longer be honoring their commitment to have a CNA at our house promptly at 8:30. They also implied that we should be grateful someone was even coming to our house. It should also be noted that there was no consistency in the RNs that were assigned to our grandmother, which meant we had to go through the entire history each time a new one showed up. We did everything we could to work with this hospice as we loved one of the nurses who came out and the Chaplin who visited. IF your loved one requires “intense” care (bathing, feeding, and administration of medication) do not hire this company. The CNA’s you are assigned will do the bare minimum in terms of care. We encourage you to take the bad reviews seriously and go with another company.