North Bay Manor

My mother has been a resident here in the skilled nursing section for about five months now, so I feel like I can make an accurate assessment of this place. She is in the advanced stages of ALS and requires a fair amount of attention — she cannot feed or dress herself, and she is difficult to understand because the disease affects speech. But she is usually pleasant despite all of this, and I think the staff appreciates that.
The caregivers are mostly very good, kind, and attentive people (a few aren’t — mostly the night crew, but I guess that’s not surprising as not a lot of people want to work the night shift). But trying to get cooperation from the kitchen is just flat out impossible.
I could actually give North Bay four stars if not for the really poor kitchen situation. The kitchen says it will take special orders and it does. But strangely, it’s standard operating procedures that seem to throw the kitchen for a loop. For instance:
— They asked my mother what she likes and doesn’t like. One of the items she dislikes are mashed potatoes. The little card that comes on her tray says she doesn’t want mashed potatoes and yet at EVERY DINNER for the past five months, she receives mashed potatoes
— They sometimes forget to bring her a meal. I mean, really. How hard is this? There’s a finite number of rooms requiring meal service and those rooms need to be serviced every day. Yet there doesn’t seem to be a delivery plan.
— Variety is completely lacking. Because my mother is in the advanced stages of her disease, swallowing is difficult so her food must be pureed. Lots of things can be pureed and yet they bring her some tasteless chicken (and by the way, they never identify what they are serving her) at 90% of her meals.
— For weeks, she indicated she could not have milk products. They continued to bring her milk for many weeks. They still continue to bring her desserts such as puddings that are milk-​based.
— It is imperative that she has soup to help moisten even the pureed food. Yet the kitchen forgets to include soup in her meal about half the time. Asking for it once the tray is delivered takes about 40 minutes. Completely UNACCEPTABLE!
My family has complained repeatedly about how poor the food service is here but nothing changes. I don’t know why. If your loved one is particular about meals or needs special accomodations, I would strongly urge you to look for a different retirement facility. This one is untrainable.