1 Star User Review
I was a patient at Burnham Healthcare in December of 2010, being cared for for chronic depression. I experienced first hand the horrors and inadequacy of staff in response to patient needs. People called for help from their beds, unanswered for hours on end as they lay in their own excrement. The CNA's were unskilled. I observed them throw my bedbound roomate down on her mattress in anger more than once in response to her cries for help. Call bells went off night and day unanswered, keeping me from getting any sleep. Many of the other patients I spoke to told me of how they wanted to leave the facility but their plans were thwarted by the staff and policies of the facility. One man I spoke to had been there 17 years. I was dumbfounded as he spoke to me with complete orientation of all his mental faculties, and told me of his attempts to get out of the horrid place he found himself in because of his homelessness. There was a particular girl who was well known for providing sexual acts for just the payment of 5 cigarretes. I was approached by male patients who asked me to have sex with them for a pack of cigarettes, Staff just looked the other way, but did offer condoms. I was hungry all the time, and was denied any extra food. People traded things for cigarettes, like sodas, or sex, and money. Two cigarettes were worth 25 cents, and certain patients were getting rich off the nicotine addicted. If I had needs, I had to go look for staff who mostly gathered in a corner of the dining room at a table gossiping. My daughter got me out. Thank God!!