Slaton Care Center

Recently I was looking for a place for my 98-year-old mom. She'd taken a fall and was recuperating from some health (infection) stuff. I wasn't looking at "long-term." If I had been, I'd consider Slaton again. I looked at four facilities in Lubbock. One was pretty good but not quite where I wanted. On a fluke I went to Slaton (20 minute drive). I say on a fluke because Slaton is owned by Creative Solutions and the other facilities Creative Solutions has in our area are not up to par (not real close), so I was not hopeful. Eddy, the Administrator in Slaton has been there 9 years as has most his management team. Eddy was exceptional. Tacoiya, DON, and Amanda (her assistant) were great. Sharon (Tacoiya's mom) was a delight. And from Moses to Eva (who has been working there forever--seriously) to...and to everyone else I interacted with I was deeply, deeply impressed. (Quedé profundamente impresionado, if I'm close on my Spanish.) So, I gave five stars because of this exceptional group of people doing an exceptionally challenging and undoubtedly difficult job; I hope Creative Solutions recognizes what they have here and doesn't work "to align" them--if anything I'd suggest using Slaton as a training facility and getting their other facilities up to Slaton's quality. And I vacillated on 5-stars or 4. If I had gone to four it would be because the facility really could use a significant facelift. That's not a slam on the outstanding maintenance guys either (they could use, although there's no way it's in the budget, more help as I'm sure could others). And I'm not sure how to "fix" the shared toilet closets between rooms but they're just sort of gross. My mom wasn't real keen on the food but everyone else in residence seemed to like it. And I'm not easy to please when it comes to food so I'm probably not a good critic. And one thing that struck me about Eddy is he didn't talk about "the facility," or "nursing care center," or any of those other terms. He was the only Administrator of the five I met who talked about the Slaton Care Center as "home." Home for their residents and home for their staff. And I know vocabulary and the use of one word shouldn't matter in the overall scheme of things, but Eddy and his family (staff) are putting in a significant effort and working hard to make an often difficult and challenging situation a lot less. So is the facility perfect? No. There's not such a place. When you're looking for care for a loved one the only perfect place is probably home, but realities and medical necessities dictate that home isn't always a possibility. I liked, however, that "home" was Eddy's vision. So to all at the Slaton Care Center, thanks for the care you provided to mom.