Interview with The Village of Riverside Glen family member, Sherrill Heatherington

Visually, as soon as you go in, the quality is obvious. The hallways are wider. The landscaping is amazing. Once you get to know the community, there are the services that they provide, which are awesome. My dad actually happened to be in another home before he got to The Village of Riverside Glen, and the difference is night and day.

One of the things that we really appreciate is the fact that he’s allowed to participate. The management has taken him on board and loves listening to his suggestions and so on. He’s really enjoying the fact that they’re not threatened by his input.

They’ve also let him participate in a podcast. Every second week, they produce a podcast where they interview seniors, and he’s a co-host of that. So that’s given him something to do, and it allows him to connect with the larger community. The podcast spans all the Schlegel Villages. 

It was the first for him with the podcast, but they come in and they set him all up and he just has to get on the microphone and chat away.

I like the size of the hallways. It makes it easy for the scooters to be there. His room is actually a little small, but he has all the other facilities outside the room, like the library and the town hall and the chapel and so on. They’ve set it up so that it’s like a village. He actually has a street name that he lives on. It just makes people feel like they’re in a small village.

They have a town hall where they can congregate for programs and a chapel, and the post office is by the door, by the office. That is nice in itself. The nurses visit him when he needs pills. He has a rash on his legs, so they come in and put medication on his legs and so on. They just come in and he doesn’t have to worry about the schedule. They know when he needs his pills.

The staff accept his feedback, and they continue to look for ideas of how they can improve, and they listen.

He was in another home before he got to Riverside Glen, and he got to that other home because the hospital said he had to go into a home. If he had stayed in that home, I don’t think he’d be with us today. The food was high salt content, and he was on a low salt diet. Since he’s been at Riverside Glen, he hasn’t had to complain about the food and the salt content. They assured him that it was all taken care of.

I think the key for him is that he has a purpose and that he’s heard. His health did improve coming from the one home, and they have a doctor on staff, so he switched to the doctor on staff. He has regular support that way. He’s got a bit of a challenge right now, and he’s going for tests for that, and they support that.

They’re willing to bring the X-rays into his room and the blood test right to him, although sometimes he goes out for them. They are prepared to bring all that right to him. Portable X-ray to bring into the room, and they bring in the lab people to take blood samples.

One of the most obvious things for me with the staff is they call themselves teams. It’s a team that’s taking care of my dad. I think that helps with the staff morale. The PSW and the nurse don’t have a hierarchy, per se. They’re there to care for the resident. It’s not like one is better than the other, and I value that.

In 2019, I actually was working in Saskatoon, and that’s when his health started to deteriorate significantly. I had to leave work in Saskatoon and come back here. Fortunately, it worked out for me, and they kept me on, and I can work from home. But when he was in the other home, it was terrible to see the conditions of the other home and what he was going through there. Moving into The Village of Riverside Glen was a nice relief.

They communicate with us well. They tell us what the rules are of the day, as the government changes the rules, for instance. I valued that. I think it’s the best of the services out there. I’ve been in other senior homes, and I really think that they do a good job.

I like Riverside Glen because it’s got the assisted care, but it’s also got long-term care, so he can stay there. He actually chose to go into Riverside Glen because Riverside Glen offered open houses where they could come in and learn things about, for instance, creating a will. They would offer a free lunch and these open sessions to anybody in the neighborhood. He used to live next door to Riverside Glen, and so he had formed a relationship with Riverside Glen long before.

I highly encourage that if you can form a relationship with the seniors' home before you move your parents in, because then it’s not a big change. He knew the people. He had already socialized with the people before he moved in. So I highly recommend that.

Riverside Glen, I think, is pricier than other places, but it provides services that meet that price requirement, I think. I have a friend who’s looking right now, and I would love for her to come to Riverside Glen, but she doesn’t live in Guelph. Being near where they are is less of a change, I think

There’s such a community within Riverside Glen. My dad is not going out, especially with COVID, like he used to be. So it’s a hurdle, but not as huge of a hurdle as I thought to begin with. I think having choice of meals is a significant one so that there’s variety for what is required. I think having the nurses’ services and the PSW services is significant.

I also find that activities are important. Even now, I told you about my dad’s podcast and he’s been contributing, but even now, he’s missing the volunteers that would come in pre-COVID because they would have all these other activities involved.

He had to go to another home beforehand. Waiting to get into Riverside Glen was stressful, I guess, for him, and he couldn’t wait to get into Riverside Glen. It was a relief that he got there and that he got there in time before COVID hit and shut everything down.

One of the things we thought about was the scooter and getting around with the scooter. The services were there, and it was close to where he had already been for the hospital, for the doctors, for the nurses, and for the bank, and so on. Those were the key considerations when we were looking at that versus other homes, even other homes in Guelph. He literally lived next door to Riverside Glen before he moved in.

That was harder. We had a lot of stuff that we thought would have value, and we couldn’t sell it at the last minute, so we ended up getting rid of a lot of stuff. I think there are companies like MaxSold out there that will come in and just sell everything for you for a certain price. But we didn’t use those. We hired a local mover who helped us with it.

He ended up getting a hospital bed because he had a double bed, and so he had to go to a smaller bed in a smaller room. But his friend found a hospital bed, and so his friends rallied together and helped us with that whole move.

They were there with a gift bag for him and a welcome-to-the-room type of scenario. So that was wonderful. When he had to move later, they actually brought in the movers and did all the work of moving. I thought that was really nice of them.

I don’t think we would change. We might have moved him earlier, so he didn’t have to go to that first home. I think that is one of the things I recommend, that the decision to move into a home is made by the individual. The sooner that it’s made by the individual, the better, so it doesn’t have to be forced upon them. I think that would be the biggest difference. It would be the timing of it.