Wingate Senior Living

toured on 8/20; very new facility; space available now in studio apt (8300/mo) skilled nursing on site (~13000/mo) - did not see on this visit memory care 'neighborhood' was a good size, not too big, flow was good; did not get a chance to speak with the memory care director location is very good

Dad is living here now and although it's only been a few weeks so far, we feel comfortable about where he is and pleased with our selection. We toured almost every assisted living facility in Western Mass and found that Epoch and another facility were our top picks. It was very surprising how similar the pricing was for each facility we toured and startled that some facilities were charging the same for, what we feel, was substandard housing situations. Epoch was clean, sunny, and friendly. Our other choice also had these traits, but we ultimately decided to go with Epoch because it was a bit less expensive and seemed to have a more casual atmosphere, which is more conducive to our Dad.

Loved the place but I think the rooms might be to small

I s/w Bob. We like this facility because it is affordable, provides the full continuum of care on the same campus,and has a common kitchen for residents to use if they want. What is confusing, however, is that Bob was 'unsure' if they accept Medicaid. Hollis said they do. Not sure about this disconnect. A has a friend from her building living here now. M knows of several people living there who like it.

My Aunt and Uncle are residents and they're happy with everything except the food service which is awful. We've been there dining several times and it takes an hour and a half to get through a meal because of the wait. The staff are not properly trained and work inefficiently. We have spoken to the management more than once and nothing has changed. In fact it has interfered with some of their health appt's. One time we had to keep the VNA waiting 30 mins in order to get our food. The rent is too high to have such a basic service be so bad. Perhaps they should pay a little more for qualified staff

I have now viewed a few places and Silver Lake. My concern. One of them was the fact that you surrounded by pine trees on the lake. Mosquitoes seemed to love my blood. I would get eaten alive there that was one issue another issue the person who did the tour didn’t give you enough time to look at the apartment you’re trying to visualize with your bed fit where you where’s your sofa gonna go how were your drapes look you need wood in 30 seconds cutting through we spent more time in the room with the big table and I noticed the other thing is that all of these facilities that I went to only one gave us lunch to see if we would like the food. Why isn’t that an automatic thing since they make it a big part of you get three meals a day they all say that and yet when you go for a visit, they don’t offer your lunch. I am not going to Silver Lake in fact, I’ve made a decision to stay home at this time. I’m putting NA when it list cost because I’ve been to so many. I don’t remember the cost..

do not pick this place because they are very short staffed and they did not make that clear when we moved our mom in. she unfortunately had several falls, ended up in the hospital, and contracted Covid during her stay at The Inn at Silver Lake. my mom was in the memory care unit which is separate from the independent/assisted living side. the assisted living side was absolutely lovely. if you're healthier with no need for advanced care, this would be a good facility. if your health is in a declining state and you're in need of one on one care, I don't recommend. it was often difficult to find people; there were instances where we had completed our visit and needed a staff member to let us out with their badge, but had to wait 20-40 minutes just to locate one individual. we had such high expectations after hearing about other people and their experiences here, but it was very disappointing.

The staff are very friendly and great with communication and response time if I have any questions or concerns. They have tons of activities provided and they have a calendar each month and it is always filled each day. My loved one said when she first got here the food was very good, they did change chefs recently and it has gone downhill some. My loved one has noticed that it seems that assisted living does have more options food wise than the memory care side. We had a couple of issues with the type of care that she needed at first. They do offer all types of care here which is very nice and they take medicaid. Overall it has been a pretty good experience and I would recommend them to others who are looking, just make sure you are an advocate for your loved one.

The community was nice and the people were very helpful and gave us a wonderful tour. When I was touring the dining hall it just was so fancy. It seemed a little like it was upper class. The residents were all dressed in nice close and this just was not a good fit for my father in law.

There are two sections of The Residences at Wingate: the nursing home and the memory care unit. The memory care unit has been great, but not the nursing home. (As such, the ratings here reflect an average of the two, with the memory care unit having a higher rating in each category.) The nursing home: My mom was there for three weeks, and the care was horrendous. They did not bathe or clean her. On three occasions we came to visit her and she was wrapped up in a bed sheet on a wheelchair and could not move. Memory care unit: Very good. The staff is very attentive, very patient, loving, caring, and gentle.

I wrote something somewhere else on this web site. Nice man ...pleasant place. Actively considered but chose The Highlands instead

management not dialed in and they are not proactive. not a place you would want a loved one to be at for the long haul.

Last year Wingate instituted a $300 fee for all residents for care weather or not care was needed. This year Wingate increased rates 3%. Last year they also raised rates 3%. In the meantime renovations have been started a good 6 to 9 months ago and not completed. What renovations that have been done have taken away the hominess of the facility and made it look more corporate. Painting is half done - it looks terrible. Additionally, the quality of the food has suffered. Cuts of meat are inferior and tough and special offerings that were available on occasion as seldom available. In short they charge more and have done little to deserve the additional money. Staff performs well however, I wish Wellness could do more at times. That claim they are not licensed to provide medical interventions but they won’t do so much as a change a bandaid. This may be the industry standard so I would shop carefully and interview some residents prior to sending a loved one here or another assisted living.

This was a wonderful place until around 2020-2021. Around that time they ‘modernized’ the central living area which made it cold and unwelcoming. They also hired new staff members which reflected the same idea. No one ever really seemed to know or understand my loved one - they would just call me and complain about her. Putting her into memory care was the worse thing - I’ll regret that forever.

[name removed] went to the hospital and they continued on charging us rent and would not reimburse the full amount only one month. I would caution others looking to pay attention to the rent if they are paying out of pocket. Staff on the floor are great, they just need a little more communication with family members.

My mother-in-law lived in a lovely apt. here for 2.5 years. Our family was impressed with the caring floor staff, activities, and meals. Unfortunately, near the end of Mom's time at Wingate, she had a medical crisis and was put on hospice, just at the time a new Nursing Director came on board. This Director exhibited a very troubling ignorance about hospice and end of life care. In the days preceding Mom's death, when she could no longer swallow, hospice left specific orders to quit force-feeding her, but this Nursing Director made her staff continue - resulting in painful episodes of Mom aspirating and vomiting. On our mom’s last day of life, the Nursing Director refused to administer comfort meds until confronted by the hospice nurse. The reason I'm not leaving a single star is that the Wingate Corp leaders took the matter extremely seriously, immediately arranging training about end of life care for the Nursing Dir. and her staff.

My father lived in the assisted living part of the building from 2013 until 2017 when Epoch ran the facility. That part of his experience was great. He had to move into memory care in 2017 when Wingate took over the facility. Our experience in that part of the facility was poor. There was not enough staff, his bathroom was often filthy, the set-up for activities was not good as residents had to travel in a small elevator to go down a floor for activities and most of the activities were not anything my dad wanted to participate in. Most of the time, people were just in front of a television set. I would not recommend memory care to anyone.

Mom was in this facility and we were not happy with her care. Carefully check out memory care before you leave a parent there. Consistently understaffed and staff that did not remain for any period of time. Don't expect this facility to return money that should be returned.

Director constantly trying to upsell services. Said we needed higher level of care with a third party. Come to find out that company was owned by them. When that failed they pushed memory care but that was full do they recommended a nursing home.

It was fine when we toured the place. But my father was placed in memory care and it was terrible everyone upstairs and a nice cafeteria people in memory care got crap food. 2) nurses in memory care were only CNA's they were not trained in dementia care 3) my father acted up one Sunday with no violence and they shipped him to hospital without letting family know. He was told he could not return the hospital told me he had a bad UTI and sepsis after treatment they would not let him back and he became a word of the state he ended up died 2 weeks later.