I agree 100% with the review posted prior to mine. This nursing home is very understaffed. I moved my mom to Coldspring Transitional Care from London Kentucky so she'd be closer to me in Cincinnati. I toured the home and all looked good. Nothing is as it seems here though. My mother nearly died during her five month stay due to a lack of nurses/nurse aides and even negligence in some instances.
Mom underwent amputation of four toes on her left foot (her right leg had already been amputated at mid thigh) just before moving to Cold Spring. She had drainage and blood seeping through her bandages, but her nurses didn't seem to think there was reason for concern. Physical therapy insisted mom participate in therapy which caused even more drainage.
I expressed my concern via telephone regarding the drainage, but my words seemed to fall on deaf ears. I decided to make a trip to the home in person and speak with a nurse supervisor. I requested that she remove mom's bandages so we could see what was going on.
I nearly fainted when I saw mom's foot. I don't know how to begin to describe what I saw so I posted a photo here. Needless to say, I requested mom be sent to a hospital. Mom's only foot had to be amputated. See photo post amputation.
Mom wasn't out of the woods though because infection had spread to the bone. The situation was quite serious. In hindsight, I should have moved mom out of Coldspring Transitional Care after what happened to her foot. I deeply regret that I didn't.
Four months after mom underwent amputation of her foot, she developed pneumonia. She was struggling really hard to breathe, so we almost knew her lungs were filling up with fluid. A chest X-ray confirmed pneumonia, but I was not given this information until the next day. By this time, mom was very sick, requiring hospitalization.
Mom nearly died within 24 hours of being admitted. Her doctors told me they didn't think she would make it and they called in palliative care and hospice. See photo of mom posted here taken the day after she was admitted. Mom's fever spiked and she nearly lost consciousness shortly after I took the picture. A team of nurses packed her in ice until the fever came down. Still, it was touch and go for a while.
In addition to pneumonia, mom was diagnosed with a stage 3 bed ulcer. The wound care nurse at the nursing home had assured us that mom didn't have a bed ulcer even though her bottom had been hurting her to the point of tears. See photo of mom's bed ulcer posted here. The hospital wound care nurse assured me that mom could not have developed a stage 3 ulcer in the hours since she'd been hospitalized.
I was so angry that the wound care nurse at the home had lied to us. This was definitely the last straw for me. I did not send mom back to Coldspring Transitional Care when she was discharged from the hospital.
The Care at Coldspring Transitional Care is the worst I've personally seen or experienced with mom. At some point, I plan to publish mom's diary she wrote while living there. She documented negligence and verbal abuse that is shocking. At one point, she wrote"THIS PLACE IS KILLING ME!!!". Imagine how I felt when I read that. I copied the portion of her diary page where she wrote this heart-wrenching comment and posted it here.
In addition to what happened to mom with regard to her only foot, the home not telling me she had pneumonia until almost too late and the bedsore, there were times mom didn't receive her medication--even life saving medication--like her blood thinner.
Not only did mom have stents in her heart, she also had stents in her only leg. The stents in her leg had been placed approximately a month before she was transferred to Coldspring Transitional Care. We were told by mom's heart and cardiovascular doctors that she shouldn't miss a single dose of her blood thinner. Despite this, mom was not given her blood thinner for seven days straight at one point and she documented this in her diary. I only knew this happened because mom was in her right mind and knew exactly what meds she was supposed to be taking.
Mom's doctors told me that she could easily have a stroke or heart attack if she missed taking her blood thinner. She would also be in danger of losing blood flow to her leg and risk amputation. Tragically, mom did lose her only leg a few months after I moved her from this facility. See photo of mom's amputation two weeks post-surgery. I'll never know if the missed blood thinner medication helped precipitate this or not, but I can't help but speculate it could have.
I filed a complaint about mom not receiving her blood thinner with the Kentucky Ombudsman and received a letter back from that office stating the allegation I made against the facility was confirmed upon investigation. See letter posted here. read more