Overall impression: Reviews of Longwood Health and Rehabilitation Center are highly polarized: many families and reviewers praise the staff, rehabilitation outcomes, activities, and aspects of the facility, while a substantial number of reviews describe serious care and safety failures, sanitation problems, and administrative breakdowns. The most consistent positive theme is the presence of dedicated, compassionate caregivers and certain leaders who take time to advocate for residents. The most consistent negative themes are staffing shortages, inconsistent care, medication and monitoring errors, and building/cleanliness problems. Prospective families receive strongly opposing advice from reviewers — some saying Longwood is a warm, home‑like rehabilitation and long‑term care environment, and others warning to avoid the facility entirely because of alleged neglect or abuse.
Staff and care quality: A dominant pattern in the reviews is that the quality of direct care depends heavily on which staff and which shift are present. Numerous reviewers describe nurses, therapists, CNAs, and administrators who are kind, attentive, knowledgeable, and go out of their way to help residents and families. Several leaders and staff were named positively (for example: Eric, Magnolia, Don/Donny, Patty, Tasha, and individual therapists and admissions personnel). Long‑tenured and experienced nursing staff and therapists were cited as strengths; many families felt reassured by the rehabilitation teams and reported good progress and compassionate nursing.
However, many other reviews recount very concerning lapses: missed medications or delayed pain relief (including antibiotics and insulin), long waits for call‑light response, missed meals, residents left in soiled briefs for hours, rough handling causing injuries, poor monitoring of labs and dehydration, and failure to complete basic hygiene and dressing changes. Several accounts described medication administration errors, IV/insulin problems, and conflicting or missing orders during transitions of care. Reviewers repeatedly describe understaffed and overworked CNAs, inconsistent shift handoffs, and compassion fatigue. These reports indicate variability in safety and clinical reliability across time and units.
Therapy and rehabilitation: Many families reported positive therapy experiences and successful rehab discharges. On‑site therapy and daily physician rounds were cited as benefits that supported recovery. At the same time, others reported limited therapy intensity (for example, sessions described as only 20 minutes once per day), missed therapy appointments, or difficult scheduling and discharge communication. The pattern is again variability — some residents received attentive, effective therapy, while others found therapy insufficient or poorly coordinated.
Facilities, cleanliness, and safety: Several reviewers describe Longwood as clean, well‑maintained, and home‑like, with comfortable dining rooms and private bathrooms in some rooms. Conversely, multiple reviewers reported serious sanitation and maintenance issues: mold on ceilings and around windows, foul odors, insects/bugs, dirty rooms, thin mattresses, missing IV poles and handrails, broken doors, air‑conditioning and plumbing problems, and janitorial lapses (dirty mops, unemptied soiled items). Some reported tiny double rooms with only a curtain divider and insufficient privacy. These opposing assessments suggest that cleanliness and physical condition are inconsistent across wings and time; when problems appear they were sometimes severe enough to cause family members to consider or effect transfers.
Dining and activities: Activities programming is frequently praised — arts and crafts, bingo, piano, and a full social schedule were positive, and staff were commended for prioritizing residents’ social needs. Dining reports are mixed: some reviewers found the food fine or good, while others described it as horrible and unpalatable. Dining set‑up (separate assisted dining areas) and nutritionist involvement were noted positively by some families.
Communication, management, and administration: Multiple reviewers praised the admissions staff, caseworkers, and several administrators for compassionate intake and follow‑through, and some families said administrators were responsive and took action to address concerns. Yet, poor communication is a common complaint: families reported not being notified of high blood sugars, no clear discharge dates, last‑minute pickup notices, missing aftercare/home‑health orders, and failure to send documentation to insurers. Some reviewers said management made promises to improve that were not sustained. There are clear examples both of proactive leadership and of overwhelmed administrators who could not sustain improvements across the whole facility.
Memory care and dementia concerns: A number of reviewers specifically called out a lack of staff training in dementia care and memory care. Reports included residents being fearful, combative behavior not handled well, and staff lacking the education to manage memory impairments safely and therapeutically. This was a recurring theme and a major red flag for families seeking secure, specialized dementia services.
Safety and legal/administrative concerns: Several reviews described situations that families characterized as neglect or abuse, including rough handling, failure to provide food or water, unattended incontinence, pressure to keep residents despite poor care, and billing or documentation problems (delayed bills, missing reports to insurance). There are also reports of residents being sent back to hospital because of unmanaged labs or infections. These comments indicate that, for some residents, there were significant lapses in clinical oversight and administrative follow‑through. A few reviewers recommended avoiding placement at all costs and even alleged that the facility should be shut down; others had the opposite, highly positive experience.
Patterns and practical takeaways: The overall pattern is high variability. Where leadership, experienced nursing, and therapy teams are present and adequately staffed, families report excellent, compassionate, and effective care. Where staffing is thin, shifts are inconsistent, or maintenance and sanitation problems exist, families report serious deficiencies with potential safety implications. Because of this mix, prospective families should expect that individual experiences will depend strongly on current staffing levels, the specific wing or unit, the time of day/shift, and which leaders are actively managing care.
If you are evaluating Longwood, important items to verify during a visit based on recurring reviewer concerns include: current nurse/CNA staffing ratios and turnover; medication administration processes and whether there have been recent medication errors; evidence of infection control and cleanliness (ask about mold remediation and janitorial protocols); memory care staff training and supervision; therapy schedules and typical session length; recent state inspection or deficiency reports; how discharge planning and home‑health documentation are handled; and the process for escalating family concerns. Meet with the administrator and DON, tour multiple wings (including a double room if that is an option), observe a meal and an activity, and ask for references from recent families. Reviewers’ experiences suggest that Longwood can provide excellent, loving care for many residents, but that there are also real and recurring risks tied to understaffing, inconsistent practices, and facility maintenance problems that should be investigated before placement.
