Overall sentiment: Reviews of Elizabethtown Nursing & Rehabilitation Center are highly mixed and polarized, with a substantial number of reports describing serious quality and safety concerns alongside many accounts of compassionate, skilled care from individual staff members. The dominant theme is variability: several reviewers praise specific caregivers, therapists, and administrative staff for excellent, resident-centered care, while others report alarming neglect, hygiene problems, medication errors, and safety issues. This pattern suggests uneven performance across shifts, units, or individual employees rather than uniformly good or uniformly poor care.
Care quality and safety: A significant portion of reviews raise urgent safety concerns. Multiple reviewers describe neglect-like conditions: unattended catheter bags, residents left in briefs for days, long delays for bedpan and lift assistance, forgotten or missed medications, and reports of UTIs and E. coli. There are also accounts of overmedication, wrong medications, and residents being hospitalized or nearly dying. These are severe allegations that point to problems with monitoring, clinical oversight, medication management, and infection control. Conversely, other reviewers explicitly state that nursing and therapy staff were qualified and that patients improved under their care, which reinforces the impression of inconsistent care quality.
Staffing and responsiveness: Many reviews emphasize stark differences by time and individual staff. Weekday staff and certain named employees (Tonya, Leanne/Leanne Ward, Shmecka, Shay) receive strong praise for professionalism, compassion, and helpfulness. In contrast, weekend and evening shifts are frequently described as inattentive or understaffed, with calls and alert lights ignored for long periods (examples include ~1 hour waits for bedpans or hallway alert lights). Reports of staff distracted by personal phones, walking past alerts, or failing to check on residents underscore problems with responsiveness and staffing levels. Several reviewers explicitly cite understaffing as a root cause of missed baths, missed meals, and poor monitoring.
Facilities and cleanliness: Opinions about the physical environment are mixed. Multiple reviewers describe the facility as older but clean, neat, and well maintained. Other reviewers, however, describe disgusting conditions, pervasive odors of urine and feces, dirty beds, and inadequate room hygiene. This split may indicate variability in housekeeping effectiveness across units or times, or it may reflect changes over time or different standards among reviewers.
Dining and nutrition: Food service emerges as another mixed area with multiple complaints of missed meals, cold or unsatisfactory food, and patients not being awakened for meals. At the same time, some reviewers simply noted that meals were served, but the overall pattern suggests inconsistent dietary care and monitoring of residents’ intake.
Activities and therapy: Therapy services, rehabilitation, and activities are among the most consistently praised aspects. Several reviewers report that therapy staff helped patients improve and that there are many activities available. This is an important strength for rehabilitation-focused residents and families seeking active engagement and recovery support.
Administration and communication: Reviews indicate variability in administration and communication. Positive comments reference a supportive management team, improvements, photo updates, and helpful admission/discharge guidance. Negative comments cite an unprofessional administrator, insurance and billing mismanagement, misinformation about COVID protocols, inconsistent staff communication, and allegations that some reviews are false. These divergent perceptions point to inconsistent transparency and follow-through in administration and family communication.
Theft, belongings, and security: Multiple reviewers allege theft or loss of personal belongings and report that personal items were improperly retained or went missing. These accounts raise concerns about security, recordkeeping, and staff accountability.
Patterns and likely root causes: The most consistent pattern is high variability—some shifts, staff members, and services perform very well while others perform poorly. Reported root causes include understaffing (especially on weekends/evenings), insufficient supervision and clinical oversight, inconsistent training or adherence to procedures (medication administration, catheter care, showering), and possible lapses in housekeeping and infection control. Staff praised by name suggest pockets of strong leadership and caregiving that are not uniformly replicated across the facility.
Recommendations for families and prospective residents: Given the mixture of strong positives and serious negatives, families should perform targeted due diligence. Visit multiple times and at varied times (weekday/weekend, day/evening) to observe staffing and responsiveness; ask about staffing ratios, weekend coverage, and supervision; inquire specifically about medication management, infection control practices (UTI/E. coli prevention), catheter care protocols, and bathing schedules. Request references from families of current residents, ask how the facility handles theft/lost items, review incident and hospital transfer statistics, and clarify discharge/retention of medications procedures. If already a resident there and concerns exist, escalate issues to administration in writing, document incidents, involve ombudsman or regulatory authorities as appropriate, and seek transfer if safety/quality is not promptly addressed.
Bottom line: Elizabethtown Nursing & Rehabilitation Center demonstrates meaningful strengths—compassionate and skilled individual staff, effective therapy services, active programming, and pockets of clean, well-managed care. However, recurring, serious allegations around neglect, medication errors, hygiene, meal omissions, theft, and understaffing create substantial risk and warrant careful scrutiny. The facility may be a strong option for some residents when specific praised staff and services are present, but the documented variability and safety concerns make thorough assessment, ongoing monitoring, and contingency planning essential for families and care planners.
