Atria Senior Living Cited by the Campaign to Improve Assisted Living

Atria Senior Living is the subject of "Assisted Living's Broken Promises," a report compiled by the Campaign to Improve Assisted Living. The report highlights serious problems, like patients receiving wrong medication, insufficient staff on hand, residents leaving the grounds unattended.

Over 1,000 events were reported, according to the campaign.

Atria Senior Living is one of the nation's largest assisted and independent living chains and a for profit organization. An apartment in one of the 121 complexes in 27 states nationwide cost thousands of dollars a month. The report alleges that residents at Atria Senior Living have been seriously short-changed, and in some cases the mistakes led to deaths.

Residents have reported low staffing

According to the report:

* Atria Covell Gardens in Davis, Calif., was cited for having only one employee available to provide care to the facility's 152 residents.

* AtriaVirginia Beach was cited for twice having no staff on duty at its assisted living component.

* A resident of Atria Campana Del Rio in Tucson, Ariz., died after receiving medicine meant for her husband for more than a month.

* An inspection of Atria Kingwood in Texas revealed a 26 percent medication error rate.

In preparing its report, the Campaign to Improve Assisted Living spoke to residents, families and staff at Atria Senior Living and these are some of the responses they received:

"I've been a resident at Atria El Camino Gardens for four years. I moved here because I had problems with my eyesight and now I'm legally blind. When I first came, the food was good and the cost reasonable. That was before Atria took over."
--Atria Resident in Carmichael, Calif.

"I worked at Atria Kew Gardens from September 2005 to July 2006. I was hired to run the recreation program for the facility's Alzheimer's-affected residents. Not long after this, I was told that I would have to start supervising this night nursing staff. I do not have any clinical background experience, I did not hire the staff I was supposed to supervise, and this would take my focus away from the successful program I'd developed to take care of the residents."
--Kathryn Kuhn, Queens, New York

"Lately my mother has not been dressed well or had make-up applied. When I asked a staff member about it, she told me that they have so many residents to care for that they can only devote about 20 minutes for morning preparations for each resident requiring assistance. We are paying $2,000 a month for such limited personal attention. Outrageous."
--Daughter of an Atria Resident, Chula Vista, Calif.

The Campaign to Improve Assisted Living is a coalition that includes the Service Employees International Union, assisted living residents, caregivers, family members, and senior advocates working together to make sure that assisted living facilities provide quality, safe housing and services at a good value.

The Campaign to Improve Assisted Living is not a government agency and does not have any enforcement capability.