Overall sentiment in the reviews is strongly mixed and polarized: many reviewers report exceptionally positive, caring, and effective day-to-day care while a substantial number describe serious problems with staffing, communication, medication management, and food. The most consistent positive themes are related to individual staff members and specific departments — nurses, aides, and rehab therapists receive frequent praise for kindness, competence, and successful patient outcomes. Several families credit the facility’s rehabilitation team with measurable recovery and regaining independence, and multiple reviewers emphasize that particular aides and nurses provided tender, life-saving, or transformative care. The facility is also repeatedly described as clean and accessible, with pleasant outdoor spaces, an atrium or social entrance area, a TV room, beauty parlor, small church services, and a variety of scheduled activities in many instances.
However, major and recurring negatives appear across many reviews. Understaffing is a dominant complaint: reviewers report long waits for assistance, delayed overnight help, slow response to call lights, and long waits for bathroom assistance. This understaffing seems to exacerbate other issues — residents sitting idle in halls, a lack of stimulation or activities on some units, and variability in the quality of attention from aides. Several reviewers described aides as inattentive or rude, while others said the aides were great; this inconsistency in personnel performance suggests mixed staff morale and uneven training/coverage across shifts.
Medical care and medication management are another critical area of concern. While many reviewers praise the nursing staff, multiple accounts indicate poor doctor involvement, infrequent physician visits, and weak communication about medications. There are troubling reports of medication errors and over-sedation with antipsychotic or anti-anxiety medications. These are serious safety-related themes and contrast with other reports of good medication management, further illustrating the polarized experience depending on unit, shift, or particular staff on duty.
Dining and nutrition receive highly mixed feedback. Some reviewers describe the cafeteria as offering varied and delicious meals, while others call the food inedible, cold, or unappetizing — with specific complaints about low-sodium diet options being hard to stomach. A few families said they frequently needed to bring outside food for their relative because meals were unacceptable. Thus meal quality appears inconsistent across time or between reviewers.
Facilities and amenities are generally viewed positively but with caveats. Many reviewers like the building, describe it as clean and accessible, and appreciate outdoor seating and roomy common areas. At the same time, certain units — especially the rehab floor — are described as drab, depressing, and overly hospital-like, with small or clinical-feeling patient rooms and limited social seating in some areas. This again points to variable experiences by unit.
Management and communication present another split picture. Some families found services well-organized and management responsive, while others report unresponsive administrators, refusal to meet, and restricted access to health records. There are multiple mentions of poor inter-department communication, which likely contributes to medication issues, inconsistent care, and family frustration.
Notable patterns: positive experiences cluster around specific compassionate caregivers, strong rehab staff, and clean, amenity-rich areas; negative experiences cluster around staffing shortages (particularly nights), inconsistent aide behavior, medication safety concerns, and variable food quality. The overall takeaway is that Clove Lakes Health Care And Rehab Center can deliver excellent, compassionate care and strong rehabilitation for many residents, but families should be aware of variable staffing levels, occasional lapses in communication and medical oversight, and inconsistent dining and activity experiences. Prospective residents and families may want to inquire specifically about staffing ratios on the unit and shift of interest, recent medication-safety practices, and how management handles family concerns and records access to better predict the likely experience.
