Located in northeast Grand Rapids, Michigan, Medilodge offers individualized care in a comfortable environment without hefty upfront fees, ensuring care is available at every stage in life.
Medilodge of Grand Rapids is a senior living community providing a continuum of care, from assisted living to memory care, short-term rehabilitation, and long-term care.
I have watched the care providers and the staff in all areas consistently improve in the past 2 years. The redecorating looks great, Mike in Facilities is awesome. The Activities staff is doing a great job for my brother whom I am guardian for.
Very different place than I remember a few years ago, and not in a good way, very disappointing
This Place is Understaffed The head people are Rude! Floor staff was Pretty nice, they seem to care, but Not enough of them to do there job the way they are intended too!! Place is Disgustingly dirty. My dad was never given a shower.He has pressure point wound that they left unattended for so long, that Now it is Huge and Infected! His room was never cleaned and mopped even when his room mate was discharged , they never disinfected Anything. Windows you can’t hardly see out of, so Dirty! People in the same clothes all week! No Music for the people on a speaker system! I Would Not Place your Family Members there. It’s a Very Sad place that you would leave a family member! It’s Just a Joke. Stay Away!!
My Mom moved to independent living at Pilgrim Manor nearly three years ago. We were very impressed with the staff, particularly Belinda, who was in charge of admissions, but did much more. She knew all of the residents by name and put in more hours than anyone in the place (including weekends).
Belinda was there one Sunday when I flushed a toilet in the visitors’ restroom, . and water came gushing out from the supply pipe coming and flowing down the carpeted hallway. It was quite a torrent.
Luckily Belinda knew who to call so that we could get into the maintenance closet and the supervisor talked me (a family member) through the process of turning off the Niagara Falls outpouring of water. Otherwise I suspect it would have flowed throughout the weekend. No emergency number (that I knew of) to call.
Building maintenance left a lot to be desired & it was clear that the operation had become too great a challenge for its church-based owners to handle.
That fall, Medilodge took over the operation and promised us that we would be very pleased with the changes that would be made. They said, “give us two months to improve the operation.” Soon after that, Belinda—who was our favorite employee and main contact—was fired.
True to their word, Medilodge quickly began the infrastructure upgrades they had promised and the appearance became much more professional as long deferred projects were completed. However, many long time staff either left in frustration with personnel changes or were fired.
Several aspects of the place were SO MUCH WORSE under Medilodge management. The food, in particular, was nearly inedible. I dropped in one day, and.—for the life of me—I could not identify the protein on Mom’s plate. A spoonful of dried rice with no sauce (or anything to increase its appeal) made a regular appearance on the residents’ plates.
The “chefs” rotated in and out every few weeks or months for a couple of years. There were so many changes in the food prep team that I could not track them. We eventually learned that the chef didn’t have the power to order food, so apparently that was done at a Medilodge corporate level. Bad idea….
I was very frustrated but my Mom feared that she would get the retribution for my complaints. Besides no one was really listening, and we were told by administrative staff at one point that the meal program was “broken.” Yikes!
The upshot of the operational changes was this: Medilodge clearly cared about the impressions that family members received about the appearance of the facility, but some critical needs of the residents—including managed care and nutrition were somewhat neglected and/or mismanaged.
It was true like so many other cases in patient or elder care, when profit motive becomes a primary motive, care declines to accommodate that motive.
There were certainly a few concerned and engaged members of the staff, but there was also a surfeit of surly, rude and abrupt team members, and the revolving door continued.
My Mom passed away a couple of months ago, and—although we miss her—we are thankful that she is in a better place. We came to call the facility “Mediocre Lodge” which seemed a more appropriate name. Besides, Medilodge is just a really dumb appellation.