Overall sentiment for South Pasadena Care Center is mixed, with a substantial number of reviewers praising the staff and cleanliness while a smaller but significant set of reviews raise serious safety, communication, and conduct concerns. Many families and residents report positive experiences: the facility is frequently described as clean, nurses and aides are called caring and attentive, charge nurses and administration are responsive in some cases, and social services/liaison support is highlighted as helpful. Several reviewers explicitly recommend the facility, say their family members were well cared for, and note good activities and appropriate hospice care. These positive comments indicate the facility can and does provide high-quality, compassionate care for many residents, particularly for short-term rehabilitation and hospice situations.
However, the reviews reveal a number of recurrent operational and safety issues that merit attention. Multiple reviewers describe call-button delays and medication stock problems that could lead to missed essential medications. There are reports of lost belongings, missing records, and allegedly erased or unavailable security footage that undermines trust in documentation and incident follow-up. These problems are distinct from, but compound, the communication complaints—families report poor follow-up when they raise concerns, inconsistent responses from staff, and frustrating lack of transparency about incidents and patient status. Together, these themes point to weaknesses in recordkeeping, incident management, and family communication processes.
Several reviews contain serious allegations concerning privacy, legal authority, and staff conduct. Specific complaints include unauthorized access to patient information by a third party, coercion of family members to sign powers of attorney, and other protocol violations. Additionally, a number of reviewers reported rude, dishonest, or discriminatory behavior from some staff and managers, including allegations of racial bias. While other reviewers praised individual staff members and administrators, these allegations suggest uneven adherence to professional standards and possible systemic issues in staff training, supervision, or culture. Because these are serious claims, they stand out in the review set and significantly affect overall trust even though they are not universal in the feedback.
The physical environment and amenities show mixed feedback: the facility is often described as clean but also as plain and lacking extras. Practical inconveniences cited include three-bed rooms with the middle bed unused (raising concerns about privacy and noise), no phones in rooms, poor TV reception attributed to antenna issues, and small meal portions that require residents to ask for seconds. Noise from visiting families and shared-room arrangements is mentioned as a factor that makes the facility less suitable for long-term residents. Several reviewers explicitly say the center is better suited for short-term rehab rather than long-term living, which aligns with the pattern of good clinical/recovery care for some residents but limited amenities and privacy for extended stays.
There is a clear pattern of inconsistency: many families had excellent experiences and praised specific staff members and services, while others had troubling, even distressing experiences. This suggests variability across shifts, teams, or cases rather than uniformly excellent or uniformly poor performance. For prospective families, the dominant takeaways are: the facility can provide compassionate, effective short-term care and has strengths in cleanliness and certain staff members; but there are repeated and serious concerns around medication management, record security, communication, privacy/POA practices, and staff professionalism that should be investigated or clarified before committing to a long-term placement. These patterns point to priority areas for improvement—reliable call response and medication supply, robust records and security practices, consistent staff training in privacy and professional conduct, clearer family communication protocols, and attention to amenities/privacy for long-term residents.
In summary, South Pasadena Care Center receives both strong endorsements and strong criticisms. The positive reviews highlight clean facilities, caring nurses, responsive leaders, and satisfactory short-term care and hospice services. The negatives are not merely convenience issues but include safety- and trust-related problems (medication shortages, lost records/security footage, alleged privacy and POA misconduct) alongside inconsistent staff behavior and limited amenities. Anyone considering this facility should weigh the frequent praise for direct caregiving against the serious operational and conduct concerns raised by multiple reviewers, and should ask facility leadership for detailed, documented assurances on medication management, incident logging and security camera retention, privacy safeguards, staff training, and communication protocols before making a placement decision.
