Overall sentiment across the reviews for PruittHealth - Aiken is highly polarized: many families and patients report excellent short-term rehab and compassionate caregivers, while a substantial number of reviews allege serious lapses in basic care, safety, and operations. Positive reviews commonly highlight clean, recently refreshed physical spaces, dedicated therapy teams producing good recovery outcomes, attentive CNAs and nurses, engaging activities, and generally pleasant meals. Several reviewers explicitly named staff and administrators (for example Dustin Hoang, Traci Martin, and Nurse Amy) as responsive and instrumental in good outcomes. These accounts often describe successful discharges, families feeling informed, and veterans receiving appropriate VA-contracted care at no cost. When the facility is operating well, reviewers describe friendly admission staff, well-kept landscaping, window or Zoom visit arrangements during restrictions, and a welcoming atmosphere.
However, an equally loud set of reviews raises serious concerns about inconsistent care quality and safety. A recurring theme is chronic understaffing and overworked staff leading to slow responses to call bells, delayed assistance, and missed care tasks. Multiple reviewers reported medication management issues, including delayed antibiotics, medications not given on time, medication changes without physician input, and missed dressing changes for lines or wounds (PICC line care concerns). These problems were often linked to increased infection risk, alleged medical malpractice, and in some cases escalation delays to hospital care. Several reviews describe actual adverse events — falls resulting in injury, a broken arm, and at least one death reported by a family who attributed it to care failures.
Sanitation and personal effects management are another area of divide. Many reviewers praise a clean facility with no odors and updated rooms, while many others describe urine or fecal smells in hallways, soiled sheets or diapers left on residents, dead bugs in wardrobes, doors off hinges, and filthy rooms requiring family members to clean. Laundry and personal property handling problems recur: clothes washed infrequently, belongings missing or reportedly donated without consent, missing blankets, and allegations of theft and stolen medication. These issues contribute to narratives of neglect and distrust among affected families.
Food and activities also produce mixed feedback. Numerous reviewers appreciate the daily activities (piano, dance, bingo, card games) and describe meals as tasty, nutritious, and well-presented. Conversely, some families report cold or low-quality food and menus that do not change. Activity staff and at least one activity director received praise in some accounts while other reviews called staff apathetic. Rehabilitation services (PT/OT/Speech) are frequently singled out as strengths; many patients made tangible progress and returned home, with families expressing gratitude for the therapy teams.
Management, communication, and administrative consistency are significant fault lines. Some reviewers commend hands-on administrators, strong leadership, transparent communication, and staff longevity, citing a positive work environment and an engaged management team. Other accounts describe administrators who remain in offices, poor or selective responses to concerns (responses only to positive reviews), missed meetings, and rude or unavailable leadership. Several reviewers explicitly recommended filing formal complaints with corporate offices or regulators (DHEC) due to policy failures and safety incidents. New management names surfaced in positive reviews, suggesting recent leadership changes that some families felt improved operations.
Taken together, the reviews indicate a facility with real strengths—especially in rehabilitation and with specific compassionate staff members—yet also with systemic weaknesses that produce widely varying experiences. The most frequent and serious complaints cluster around understaffing, medication and clinical care errors, sanitation and laundry mishandling, safety/fall incidents, and inconsistent administrative responsiveness. These issues appear unevenly distributed by shift, unit, or time period; the same facility is described both as a “five-star” rehab by some and a “nightmare” by others. For prospective residents or family members, the reviews suggest verifying current staffing levels, management stability, clinical oversight procedures (medication, wound/PICC care), laundry and property policies, infection prevention practices, and incident reporting processes. Asking for recent quality metrics, inspection results, and references from current families may help discern whether the facility’s positive elements are reliable and whether the serious negative patterns have been addressed.
