Piedmont Gardens — Local services in Oakland

Time to update my review: My parents have lived at Piedmont Gardens for almost 5 years, and they are very happy there. Depending on which part of the facility (i.e. independent living, assisted living, or skilled nursing) you live, it has its pluses and minuses. The independent living facility is very nice and ideally located right off of Piedmont Ave. The residents there are an interesting group of people with varied life experiences, and the available selection of daily activities is excellent.

Piedmont Gardens is owned by ABHOW, which presents itself as a non-profit organization, but in some ways seems to function more like a corporate real estate organization. That said, there are many good and caring employees. ABHOW is pretty good at managing the facility, but sometimes seem to be as focused on the budget as the well-being of the residents.The primary downside to Piedmont Gardens for the independent living residents is the quality of the food, which is fair and instituional, more akin to the food you were served in school than that of a quality dining establishment or home cooked meal. (The service crew in the dining room, though are really very good.)

Under a new Executive Director, Kevin Smith, some improvements have been recently made. I think most residents would say there has been a slight improvement in the food in the last year or so, but the trend is slow and there is still a long way to go. My parents report he is sincere about taking care of both the residents and his staff.

A few years ago, residents asked for ABHOW to hire a social worker to address the needs of the many in the community who are in transition (death of spouses, changes in health, and other issues of aging). Initially the former management declined to do so, even though about 50% of competing facilities use the services of a licensed social worker. Happily, when the former chaplain retired, he was replaced by someone with bona fide social work credentials. This was a smart move.

This next part is only hearsay, but I am more than a little dismayed about the reports I have heard from people with parents in the assisted living, memory and skilled nursing areas. Some people feel they are understaffed, under qualified, undertrained and under budgeted. They complain there has been a lukewarm commitment to providing excellent care and service in these areas. I have heard these reports a enough times to worry that there may really be some fundamental problems and I hope my parents can remain in their Independent Living apartment for as long as possible.

It's been about a year since Mr. Smith, who seems to be well intentioned, was hired. I am anxious to see if he is able to correct the problems in the dining, assisted living and...

During a recent visit to Piedmont Gardens, I experienced an incident I believe constitutes racial discrimination. As a healthcare provider with 21 years of experience, I consistently call facilities in advance to confirm parking and access procedures. Piedmont Gardens indicated visitor parking was available on a first-come, first-served basis.

On my first visit, no spaces were available. On my second visit, I found three open spaces in the designated visitor parking area. Upon entering the lot, a Hispanic man, whom I believe his name was Pedro, intently watched me park. He then approached my vehicle and aggressively insisted I was not permitted to park there, despite my visitor status and the facility’s prior instructions. I attempted to show him my visitor sticker, but he remained adamant, even incorrectly identifying me as an employee.

A Caucasian employee then intervened, confirming the initial parking instructions given to me. It became clear to me that Pedro's actions were racially motivated, disregarding my status as a healthcare provider simply because of my race.

I subsequently contacted Piedmont Gardens to report the incident. My call was returned by a supervisor, seemingly Pedro’s colleague, whose name I believe was Schee. This supervisor’s response was unsatisfactory, attempting to justify Pedro’s behavior with inconsistent and unconvincing explanations. The supervisor's apparent unwillingness to acknowledge and address the racial bias exhibited by Pedro is deeply concerning.

This incident highlights a serious issue of racial discrimination at Piedmont Gardens. I believe a thorough investigation into this matter is necessary to ensure a respectful and inclusive environment for all visitors and staff. It is my hope that Piedmont Gardens will take appropriate action to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.

Noted that I worked in Monterey California and Pebble Beach and the people were kind and hospitable and were more wealthy than those at this facility. So even if this facility is supposed to be upscale, the discrimination shouldn’t be present.

I will say this forever. If other races want black folks to stop discussing racism then they should stop...

UPDATE 2018-07-28: After being contacted by Kevin and discussing our complaints, efforts were taken by higher ups to help rectify the situation and amendments were made. We were also contacted by Daniel, one of the executive directors at Piedmont Gardens. Using a translator, Daniel conversed with, and was very attentive to, my mother-in-law's complaints, and he took the situation very seriously. He took extra actions that we very much appreciated as a means to makeup for the mishandling of her earlier treatment. Thank you, Daniel and Kevin, for taking our situation seriously and working to improve it.

We hope that Daniel and Kevin will continue to improve the care of their patients and to put in place measures that will prevent such occurrences from the future.

ORIGINAL Review:

Highly discriminatory staff with poor training. Mother in law only speaks Cantonese and Mandarin and is recovering from an invasive surgery where she is in a neck brace for at least 3 months and needs to relearn to walk.

Discrimination and racism from staff includes (as witnessed and confirmed by her roommate who understands her limited English):

Saying "no" to requests for a spoon to eat yogurt. Seriously, how else do you eat it... Saying "no" to requests for soy milk in the morning, and responding to "the kitchen's closed" when it is not. When her toothbrush fell on the ground, one of the nurses told her to pick it up herself and did not help her. This was confirmed by the nurse educator (the one who manages the nursing staff) and a staff member did admit this. Kudos for integrity, at least... My spouse, who speaks English.. asked the staff to provide a new clean gown and to change her bed sheets. Nurse said they would, but they did not. Her mom has been getting rashes/bug bites and they DON'T change the sheets until then. They woke her up at 5AM to feed her pain medicine when she is sound asleep. The don't have a translator on site when the surgery and long term care was scheduled months in advance.

I'm wondering if a lawyer will read this and if we can file a lawsuit... This is America, after all....

I'm sure there will be more incidents, but...