Schenectady Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing

The absolute worst. My mother was at Peregrine Memory Care until she had a fall. Since she could not walk, she was transpoed to Sch. Rehab. after 3 days at Albany Med. At Alb. Med she could feed herself and complain about EVERYTHING from the food to the nursing care. I was happy she was so animated about being annoyed. From the MOMENT she was transpoed to Sch. Rehab. she was basically a zombie. She could not feed herself, she could not communicate easily, and she spent 24x7 FREEZING, because even though I TOLD them that she MUST have a sweater on AT ALL TIMES, they NEVER put one on her. I had to do it myself EVERY DAY. The first day we (hubby and myself) were there we FINALLY got her out of zombie mode and she was talking, involved, and was willing to follow our commands for therapy. We were able to get her to try to stand 5-6 times, and do 25 leg lifts on each leg. This is the ONLY time that happened. She fell (according to the facility, although they said she was "fine" and DID NOT send her to the hospital(!)) on the 3rd day she was there and she was NEVER able to even attempt to stand again. How do we know she didn't break a hip or get seriously injured? Yeah, we DON'T! If the "rehab" actually did ANY rehab shouldn't my mom have gotten stronger? Yeah, that didn't happen. Three days into her internment (after the alleged fall) she could barely communicate. It was clear that they couldn't be bothered to dress her or use the silhouette depends (diapers) or the CLOTHES I had provided, so she was just sitting in a smelly hospital gown in a wheelchair ALL DAY. No jacket, no sweater, just a piece of sleeveless cloth for a 98 year old woman. EVERY DAY I would arrive to visit and find her gorked out at the "nurses" station in a wheelchair moaning in pain, all hunched up and shivering from the cold. They NEVER would allow her to take a nap except in a wheelchair (!), no one helped her to eat, and in the 19 days she was there she lost more than 13 lbs. The day she died I was awoken by a phone call at 5am for a "decline in health". When I got there at 6:15 I IMMEDIATELY INSISTED that they call a bus to Ellis. She was CLEARLY near death, yet they had done NOTHING. The staff at Ellis COULD NOT BELIEVE that they hadn't called for a bus ON THEIR OWN, but called me instead. She was declared dead at 1:20pm that same day. Please note that the vast majority of 5 star reviews for this hellhole are from people who have NEVER rated anything else. EVER. I call bogus. Also, in ALL THE TIME I BEGGED to speak to someone on my mother's "care team" I never ONCE got a call back. However, I have spoken to Karishma in billing FIVE TIMES. Yeah, it's all about the benjamins with these "people". If I could go back in time I would have brought my mother home and hired a 24 hour nursing service and a personal trainer. She would be alive and walking now if I had done so. If you care about your loved ones AT ALL you will NEVER allow them to be consigned to this hell hole. This place should be shut down.