Overall sentiment about Charlene Manor Extended Care is highly mixed, with a clear pattern of strong praise for individual staff and certain services contrasted by recurring and serious concerns about safety, hygiene, staffing levels, and consistency of care. Multiple reviewers describe outstanding, compassionate caregivers who made family members comfortable and reported measurable rehabilitation progress; at the same time, other reviewers describe neglectful episodes including falls, soiling, and missed basic care. The facility appears to deliver very good care in some instances but has lapses that can be severe and harmful.
Care quality and staff: Many reviews single out specific employees and teams as caring, competent, and attentive — for example, several comments praise nurses who administer medications properly, take vitals, and provide excellent hands-on care. Melissa Bacigalupo is named specifically as an aide who “went above and beyond” and was consistently available and reassuring. Rehabilitation services are also repeatedly credited with improving mobility and providing effective therapy under Medicare/VA. However, there is substantial variability in staff performance: some aides and nurses are described as “cold,” inconsistent, or difficult to work with. Understaffing is a recurrent theme; it results in delayed nurse response, missed showers, missed assistance with toileting, and tasks not completed. This variability suggests that care quality depends strongly on which staff are on duty and that staffing levels or scheduling may be inadequate to meet resident needs consistently.
Safety, equipment, and clinical concerns: Several reviews describe serious safety problems — at least two fall incidents (one in a bathroom after an aide left a high fall-risk patient unattended and another from a bed) and a reported skin tear. Equipment problems were also noted, including a missing wheelchair and lack of appropriate bariatric equipment; one reviewer reported hands black from a dirty wheelchair. Bed-rail checks and other safety practices were mentioned positively by some families, but the adverse events indicate lapses in fall-prevention and supervision protocols. Reports that residents were left sitting in urine and feces, and that promised reimbursements were not honored, underscore both clinical and administrative failures in specific cases.
Facilities and cleanliness: Opinions about the physical environment diverge sharply. Several reviewers describe clean, attractive, newly renovated rooms and an overall pleasant ambiance with flowers and a welcoming community room. Conversely, other reviews depict a rundown, depressing environment with dust on window sills, debris and exposed screws on floors, stained and ripped wallpaper, and persistent odors of urine and feces. These conflicting descriptions suggest that cleanliness and upkeep may vary by wing, unit, or over time. Maintenance is praised in some reports for quick responses, yet other comments indicate unresolved environmental hazards and poor housekeeping standards.
Dining and activities: Dining receives mixed feedback. Some reviewers praise the kitchen and the ability to provide substitutions; others find the food poor or limited in variety, which may be a function of the facility’s small size. Activities programming is generally cited as a positive element: there are singers, piano music, daily activities, and a community room that residents use. Still, some reviewers would like more frequent or varied activities. Overall, social programming exists and can be meaningful, but meal quality and variety appear inconsistent.
Management, communication, and administrative issues: Management gets both praise and criticism. Several reviews call the management team “absolutely amazing,” noting a family atmosphere and good employee benefits; other reviewers describe poor communication, accusations toward family members, confusion at admission, and unfulfilled promises such as reimbursement. These mixed impressions point to uneven administrative performance — where management and communication work well for some families, for others the experience included distressing lapses and confrontations.
Patterns and takeaways: The pattern across reviews is one of high variability. When well-staffed and with certain caregivers on duty, the facility can provide compassionate, effective care, good therapy outcomes, prompt maintenance, and an attractive environment. When understaffed or when certain employees are on shift, serious problems arise: missed hygiene, delayed responses, falls, equipment shortages, and poor cleanliness. For prospective residents and families this means the facility may be a good fit if you can verify staffing levels, meet and identify reliable caregivers (and perhaps request continuity when possible), and confirm protocols for fall prevention, infection control, bariatric equipment, and reimbursement/financial communications. The most urgent concerns from reviews are safety and hygiene lapses that have led to falls and neglect in some cases; these warrant direct questions and inspection before placement.
In summary, Charlene Manor Extended Care has notable strengths — dedicated caregivers, effective therapy programs, responsive maintenance, and a supportive management reported by some — but those strengths coexist with recurring and severe weaknesses in staffing consistency, safety protocols, cleanliness, equipment availability, and communication. Experiences appear highly dependent on timing, unit, and specific staff, so families should conduct careful, specific due diligence (ask for recent staffing ratios, incident records, fall-prevention measures, bariatric equipment availability, and live walkthroughs) to evaluate whether the facility’s strengths will apply to their loved one and whether corrective actions have been taken on the serious issues raised in the negative reviews.
