Business ProfileforContinuum

My sister and I write to inform you and the public of the unfortunate experience our late Mother and we had with St. Louis County based, Continuum Home ********** Services. ******************************  We know that private duty health care services such as Continuum are not as highly regulated as nursing homes, assisted living and other such fully licensed entities. Our hope is, by bringing our adverse experience with such a home health care entity to your attention, greater guidelines might be imposed on this service industry. As background, Mother was a 52 year resident of *******. She moved into an independent living apartment at *************************************** in ******* in August 2019. Mother had a mild stroke and was diagnosed with dementia in late July 2020. As Mother was non ambulatory, considered a significant fall risk and needed full-time assistance following rehabilitation, we decided it would be best to have her return to the familiar surroundings of her ************** apartment with 24/7 in home health care. We contracted Continuum *********** to provide this service and care program for our Mother in early October 2020 with the belief and understanding she would be well provided for particularly as my sister and I live out of town and were unable to monitor Mother on an in person daily basis. Please note that Continuum is not at all affiliated with ************** and is an outside vendor. My sister and I have nothing but praise for **************************************** and all who are associated with it. They are truly exceptional.Our Mother experienced three falls while unattended (that we know about) during the course of her Continuum care. The first in January 2021, the second in March *********************************** late June 2021 -- all requiring hospitalization. The latter is what contributed to her death having fallen in her bathroom breaking her clavicle and hitting the side of her head with resulting bleeding on the brain. Mother's condition worsened over the next few weeks with her underlying cause of death in August, 2021 being "Subarachnoid Hemorrhage". My sister and I had numerous communications with Continuum staff expressing our concern about the need to have the caregivers watch Mother 24/7 as she was non ambulatory and a fall risk. This was known by Continuum from the outset. After each fall we were given assurances that the caregivers would be given additional instruction on this. Apparently, those instructions were either not given or fell on deaf ears. Even in spite of Continuum placing an 8x10 notice on Mother's refrigerator noting her as a fall risk, the multiple falls and hospitalizations occurred. We noticed on a number of our visits/stays with Mother, that the caregivers were not in the room with her during the day and night, thus leaving her at great risk. If this was happening while we were there, then we can only imagine how often it occurred when we were not.Additionally, after Mother entered ************** at ************** following her third and fateful fall in late June 2021, my sister and I were going through her effects in her apartment and found an unopened Walgreen's bag with a full prescription of Hydrocodone dating from February 22, 2021. This was found in her living room, stuffed behind family albums on the lower shelf/drawer of a secretary desk. We found this curious, as all her administered medications were located in the kitchen. When we inquired of Continuum as to why this important pain medication was not with all her other medications and being withheld from her for nearly 4 months, we were given a most unsatisfactory and evasive response. That the family was never consulted or told about this medication being hidden, notwithstanding the fact that it was being withheld from Mother, is entirely unacceptable and does not follow standard procedures when dealing with a narcotic of this nature. This leaves much to question about the caregiver's intent of this narcotic notwithstanding Continuum's lack of following standard operating procedures. We are exceedingly disappointed and disturbed in what was advertised to us as premium care by Continuum and ended up being sub standard service, consistent shortcomings, and the lack of standard operating procedures being followed -- particularly with a narcotic. What was provided our Mother was almost to the point of babysitting. At the rates we contracted with Continuum, this type of service should never have happened. Bottom-line, our Mother suffered and died as a result of the caregivers' neglect and lack of proper training by Continuum.My sister and I have posed the following questions to *************************, President of Continuum: What measures have you taken to ensure another innocent client and family do not have to go through what our Mother and we went through with this sub standard and neglectful service? What additional training is being provided? What additional situational awareness programs is Continuum providing it's caregivers? How have your hiring practices changed since Mother's incident? How have your communications with the family improved? We have asked Continuum for specifics so that others do not suffer the tragic fate our Mother did.Please know that Continuum will not be given a positive referral from our family. In addition to letting you know, we have provided our views and all of this information to the leadership of ************************; leadership of **************; Attorney General *******; the ******** ********** of ****** and ****** Services; the ********* Better Business Bureau as well as to the President/CEO of Continuum. Additionally, our views and this information have been provided to the numerous friends and families Mother and we were acquainted with while in Independent Living at **************.We have lost a Mother. Continuum has lost only a "client". Continuum can find another "client". We cannot have another Mother. We appreciate your attention to this matter and would ask that greater scrutiny and guidelines be imposed of this unregulated service industry be given.Finally, it is indicative that there is no BBB rating of Continuum. Says a lot.