Interview with Gilmore Gardens - Verve Senior Living family member, Andy Wong

I find the service first class all the way. I have been in the service industry myself as a pharmacist, as a barn dance teacher, and as a studio owner. So I know excellent service when I see it. The staff and management at Gilmore Gardens are top-notch, very knowledgeable, friendly, and courteous. The main thing is that they truly make me feel that they are very sincere and dedicated to the care of their residents.

They truly have their attention to their well-being. That was very important for me, that the staff and management were top-notch.

When you don’t know anything about seniors living, and you’re doing your research, the first thing you think about is a nursing home. That’s where it’s not true, in that there are different levels of assisted living. When I looked into my research, and I took a tour of Gilmore Gardens, it felt like a cruise ship-like atmosphere. It was like a feeling. So that was fantastic, and I felt that this was exactly what we were looking for.

The atmosphere was the second thing that stands out for me. One of the things that I like is that as a resident, my mom could do as much as she wants, or as little as she wants. She has her independence as well as the ability to participate in any of the activities. You’re not forced to do anything and you still have the opportunity to interact with the residents in many ways.

When my mom was living in the condo tower in Burnaby, we would go out and have dinner once every two weeks and maybe dinner once every three weeks. But with her staying at Gilmore Gardens, we can have dinner and lunch with her anytime. So we make it a weekly thing where we all gather at Gilmore Gardens. 

I’m only five minutes away down the street. Having the freedom to visit my mom and have dinner with her regularly is fantastic. That made our life so much more satisfying, seeing mom any time we want.

One particular story that tells you about the service and the mindset of the staff there was that my mom moved in March, and in August, she left the tap running on her kitchen sink. While she was busy being distracted by a phone call or something, the sink stopper was in, so it flooded.

Because she was a little bit hard of hearing and talking on the phone, she couldn’t hear the water dripping. So there was a two-inch level of flooding on the carpet. Of course, that was very alarming. The staff immediately took care of her, made sure she was able to sleep in another room, and advised me on the insurance.

There was absolutely no judgment, not like, oh, what did you do? You forgot to plug and you shouldn’t do that. Not at all. Non-judgmental, top service. When I saw that, I said, how nice of them to understand that these things happen, that it’s only an accident, and that the main thing is to make sure she’s okay and taken care of, and she doesn’t have to mop it up herself.

The staff is excellently trained. They’re courteous and friendly. Right from the point I step inside a door to visit my mom, there are always greetings. They know everyone by name. They know me by name. I believe some of the dining reception staff have been there since the facility opened, like 20 years ago. That shows you how good the staff is.

The suite itself is very roomy. It’s got the bedroom. It’s got the living room. It’s got the kitchen counter. It’s got lots of storage space, more storage than expected. You’ve got a full bathroom. So it has everything in an apartment that you want.

There is security, like a security line that you can pull any time in the room or in the hallway, so that if you’re under stress, you fall down, you need help, it’s immediate. The entire building at Gilmore Gardens is very safe, with accessibility rails type of thing

The atmosphere is very festive. It is decorated according to the season, and you never feel like you are in some sort of institution. It’s very welcoming. I find that very impressive.

She was happy before. She’s delirious now! I think, first of all, my mom doesn’t act her age. She’s just in many ways a fun-loving adult. Even though she doesn’t speak too much English, she can socialize with anybody. So that aspect was very important.

It’s very satisfying to see her at home, so to speak, with so many people at Gilmore Gardens who were strange to her a couple of years ago. That has made her life happier because of the interaction.

She feels safe and secure knowing that if she needs help, there are people around her monitoring her. They have a morning check on every room to make sure you’re okay. So she feels secure. We have peace of mind. If she’s happy, we’re happy.

We are happy to be able to visit her any time, more frequently than before. We’re no longer fearful of something happening to her and we’re not there for her. All in all, our lives have been improved much better.

It’s like a cruise-like atmosphere. There’s a front reception with a big dining room and everything is elegant. It’s not office-like, and it’s not institutional-like. It’s more of a hotel, cruise ship-like atmosphere is the way I describe it.

It’s very welcoming. There are public washrooms on the front floor, the front reception. So we as visitors feel right at home. We don’t need to feel unwelcome or be looking for things. There are stairways and elevators, and easy access. I can go from the parking lot straight up to my mom’s room easily. There is handicapped parking and a downstairs parking lot at Gilmore Gardens.

It feels like a hotel, a welcoming place. You are free as a guest and the visitor. Even the residents are treated like guests. They’re being served. It’s a full-service facility.

When I say I go for dinner with my mom at Gilmore Gardens, it’s not a buffet line. It’s a table setting served. It’s like going to a restaurant. I was also very impressed by that.

I have peace of mind. When we have our own homes and residences far away from each other, even within the city, I had to take an hour’s drive to go to Burnaby from Richmond, or 40 minutes to an hour in traffic, to go see my mom. Now I’m five minutes away.

Our family, and I’ve got my brothers also living in Richmond, can visit and socialize and have meals with my mom any time we want within five or 10 minutes. That’s a huge change for us. The fact that her well-being is monitored 24/7 is wonderful. There’s staff out there to look after her. So we are not concerned about it at all.

We had a tour of Gilmore Gardens and all of the individual rooms two or three years before we actually moved mom in because we were weighing the pros and cons. Mom was happy living by herself. We didn’t want to take the independence away from her. At the same time, we needed to be concerned about her security and well-being and ease of life.

We had to balance it out. There comes a point in time where we say, okay, now it’s time to do it. But we actually saw the facility two or three years ago and knew exactly what it was like. Right away we were impressed. My mom was impressed. So we said, okay, when the time comes, we will come here.

The first thing is to do some research and find out that there are different levels of care in the seniors’ assisted living programs. Most people are not aware of that. So do your research and take a tour. That’s the best thing.

Go in. Take a tour. Sit down. List all that’s available. Once you see firsthand what the facility is like, with the staff, what the atmosphere is like, and maybe even talk to some of the residents, you get firsthand knowledge and a firsthand assessment of what it’s like at Gilmore Gardens. What you read on paper is one thing, but when you see it, it’s the best thing.

My mom was living in a 30-storey condo tower in Burnaby, and we were living in Richmond. Once you get a couple of fevers, are bedridden for a week, or when she fell down and broke her leg in 2015, we knew that one of these days we may or may not be there for her. All these little instances made sure that we were ready.

One was the closeness of the facility to where I am living. Every time I drive by, I see the facility. I said, you know, there’s assisted living. There are several in Richmond, in my city. But Gilmore Gardens was very close, five minutes down the street. That was one big plus, the closeness.

The second determining factor in making my decision was the tour. Just going in, talking to the manager, going inside the room to see exactly what the room is, and learning what the monthly fees cover and don’t cover.

When we decided we should look into Gilmore Gardens as the first choice, we paid a fee to get onto the waiting list. Almost every other month, I would get a call from Gilmore Gardens, and they would say if there was a room available now, would we try to take it? I said, not yet. My mom’s still happy. I think we are still okay.

Even though we declined the offer, we were still at the top of the list. We were not shuffled down. That was good, in that we were always on top of the list as one of the earliest people to call if this room was available. Again, that tells me it’s good service that we got in early on the waiting list.

In the February, just the month prior to moving in, my mom had a flu. She was having chills and could barely stand up. I said, mom, this is going to happen again, and you don’t want to be having to stay home, and no one’ll be looking after you. Maybe you should consider moving.

I stepped inside some other facilities where I did not feel welcome. I felt like I was an intrusion on the staff’s daily work schedule. As I said, I’m in the service industry. I work in the restaurant and hotel business, with my dance studio. So I know how important it is to make you feel welcome. When I’ve had that yucky feeling that I’m an intrusion, I felt, no, this is not the place.

When I stepped into Gilmore Gardens, it was totally opposite. I just felt I was being welcomed, even though I’m not a client yet, I’m a potential client, but I’m treated like a guest. That was the main thing about the facility, how we were treated when we took the tour more than anything else.

The first thing is to understand that there are different levels of assisted living, from totally independent, active seniors, kind of a cruise ship atmosphere and active, to the nursing homes where people have long-term disabilities and are bedridden. 

You have to know exactly what your loved one needs to compare the needs of your loved one to what the facility provides. That’s one thing. The best thing is to go into a facility that you are researching and take a tour of the facility and talk to the staff and see the rooms and find out what they provide and what they don’t provide. I think that’s very important to actually get a firsthand look at Gilmore Gardens.

It was very easy in that Gilmore Gardens gave us a recommendation of a mover that was familiar with that facility. So that was good. If you hire somebody who is not from a facility, they would have to do a little bit of searching around. The fact that we had a mover who knows the facility, knows where the entrances are, elevators, stairs, et cetera, was good.

The whole moving day was planned out for us in that they knew when we were moving in. They got all the elevators set aside for us. There is handicapped access in the downstairs garage. So we were away from the front entrance. It was very separate, you’re moving. There are underground parking lots. Again, the movers can move right in without having to go street level. Everything is handicap ramps, so you can avoid the stairs.

They had lunch ready for us, for the family, to welcome us. They had one resident assigned as a liaison for my mom. “I’m one of the residents here. I’m going to look after you for the first three days just to get you acclimatized.” So that was pretty smooth.

They have their own in-house handy person. That’s available to fix anything and everything. Before my mom moved into Gilmore Gardens, they made sure that all the amenities inside the suite were clean, repaired, and empty. So it was ready to be moved into.

This gentleman was ready to help us fix anything that needs to be fixed. Just anything, doorknobs, anything. Again, that was part of the service, to have this handy person available to us.

My mom and my dad before he passed away bought a duplex in Burnaby and they rented it out to pay the mortgage. This was in the early 80s. When my dad passed away in ’89, for the next 20-plus years, my mom acted as a landlord living in the duplex and looked after renters on two sides. There were steep stairs, these old houses.

She was by herself acting as a landlord for 20-plus years. There comes a time that you’re getting too old for this. So we sold the property, sold the duplex, but then where was she going to live? So we used some of the funds to get her a new condo in a condo tower. That was the next three or four years.

If we knew about Gilmore Gardens a lot sooner, I think we would have maybe skipped past the condo and went straight from the duplex straight into Gilmore Gardens and Richmond. Hindsight is 20/20. That’s what we would have done differently.