Berkley West Convalescent Hospital

I was there for one hour so I don’t have a complete picture of this place. My mom was transferred from the ucla hospital around the corner yesterday. Parking on the street is terrible, but there’s about 3. Or 4 visitor spaces in the back alley area. Chanel, the head person over there seemed very nice and informative, even if she’s brand new there. The nurses seemed very competent in handling patient needs and are always busy. My mother is in for physical therapy so she can walk again… Hopefully. I’ll have to update this review when her stay is over. I see a lot of good reviews on this facility. My mom’s neighbor worked in nursing homes and assisted living places and said this is a very good facility. Sounds good so far. Visiting hours are from 11 am to 8 pm.

My dad has been at two different convalescent /​rehabs in the last 18 months, the first time after surgery and recently after a heart attack. Because he has Alzheimer’s he needs pretty sensitive staff members to actually get him to get out of bed and do physical therapy. A year and a half ago after prostate surgery he ended up at a place near my folks home in the Beverly Hills area covered by Medicare. Unfortunately I cannot recall the name but it was not great for him, he managed to do very little PT and he became extremely depressed. This time we looked at places that were and were not covered by Medicare. We tried to get my dad into Silverado which is a place for people with Alzheimer’s. Despite the expense we were excited to do it. Unfortunately Silverado rejected him saying he needed more of a skilled nursing facility which they were not, and they worried about him falling. I tried to explain to them that my dad was, physically at least, better off than he seemed. He was simply again depressed. But they bought into his saying he couldn’t walk without help etc. (He is walking fine now by the way.) We could not take him back to a place where he would lay in bed alone for many hours and we saw no reviews that sounded moderately positive for anywhere that was close enough for my mom to easily drive to every day. Silverado had been our last hope for somewhere in the neighborhood. After we read the reviews for Berkley West we decided we would just have to deal with getting my mom to Santa Monica. We could not put my dad through that again. So after my sister-​in-​law, who had once worked at a nursing home, vetted them by phone and gave the place a thumbs up we went with Berkley West. We found a senior ride service (TLC Senior Ride) that could take my mom most days and I drove her on others. (FYI TLC is cheaper than a taxi and unlike Über the drivers have background checks and some training to work with seniors.) In any case, Berkley West turned out to be well worth the drive. There is a social worker there who was knowledgeable about all the services my dad would be eligible for through Medicare. He had daily physical therapy, was helped to shave and to get on track with shaving his face daily (which made my mom feel better) and we were able to arrange for some extra care for him through the Director of Nursing who was great. The extra care was more because with Alzheimer’s it can be scary to be alone & it was helpful for him to be able to ask someone questions or help him make calls. The staff at Berkeley though was very involved in everything and very good natured and kind. During week one my dad’s doc warned us we might need to get a hospital bed at home and 24 hr nursing care if my dad couldn’t walk on his own. Yet By week two at Berkley West he was able to walk around the circumference of Berkley West and go to the bathroom by himself! Despite this he often would tell the staff he wanted the wheelchair and needed help walking or getting to the bathroom. Fortunately the staff would encourage him to walk on his own instead while they pushed a wheelchair behind him. They would tell him, Now Mr. Stein you know you can do this on your own but I’ll be there. This is the kind of thing that it is much harder for me his daughter to say to him or his wife without him getting angry but the staff was able to get him to comply without argument. They also got him to eat in the dining room sometimes instead of eating alone in his room. And he seemed to enjoy the company. In many cases having a roommate would be good. My dad’s particular roommate was not ideal as he had some kind of issue where he called out Help all day long but he didn’t actually need help. It was sad. But my dad felt compassion for the man & I suspect it made him feel like maybe he wasn’t doing quite so bad. I said to my dad that it must be hard to have this man as roommate and my dad said, Well I’m sad for him. But otherwise wasn’t upset by it. We could have gotten a private room for an extra $ 250 a day but that seemed an unnecessary expense. It was better to spend the money on extra care for my dad for when my mom and I and other family members could not be there. (And it was a lot less than $ 250 of course.). For $ 20 a month you can have a direct phone line in room) Everyone at Berkley was warm and friendly. No one brusque or rude or cold or insensitive. I’m amazed they can do what they can do there. It isn’t fancy and the shared rooms don’t give you much room but the patients are TREATED with DIGNITY. I mean even at Cedars-​Sinai I thought many nurses were insensitive, talking about my dad to me in front of him like he wasn’t there, or having more than 1 person in the room while he was using a portable toilet & not telling me to leave the room (I did of course but they nearly disrobed him & moved him to a toilet before I had a chance. None of that at Berkley. The staff is respectful and caring & BW is covered by Medicare. The best I’ve seen.

My 97-​year-​old uncle had two bad falls last year. After the first fall, the hospital (without consulting us) transferred him to a convalescent hospital in Santa Monica that was adequate, but who failed to return my phone calls, crammed him into a VERY small stuffy room with another patient, and whose staff rarely came when he called. (Some of them were too busy cat-​calling me out the kitchen window as I came up the alley… yeah, that happened.) At the end of his stay as we were checking out, we found that his wallet had disappeared. Altogether a bad experience.
Sadly my uncle fell again a few months later, but this time I jumped in while he was still in the emergency room and arranged for him to be transferred to Berkley West. We absolutely loved Berkley West for many reasons. The facility itself is outstanding. Clean, up-​to-​date, and spacious. My uncle shared a room, but a very large one with his own T.V. He liked the food, and the nurses and we like the nurses too (despite some poor English that made it hard to communicate at times — sorry… we love you anyway ;o) The staff was helpful and more importantly, they were thorough. There was always someone at the front desk to answer questions. The nurses who got my uncle in and out of bed were just great with him.
The care my uncle received was so good, and communication with Berkley West was easy — I never had trouble getting ahold of anyone and more importantly my uncle was happy with his stay. And his opinion is the one that really counts: o)

We recently had to use Berkley West to care for our loved one. I believe part of this process does require a lot of family involvement to make sure your loved one is being properly taken care of. From the moment I first went to look at the facility I felt good energy there. The staff welcomed us and answered any and all of our questions and helped develop a plan to address our specific needs. For our family we were there everyday and the staff was BEYOND ACCOMODATING AND LOVING to alllll of us (friends included). It made a truly difficult time for us much more bearable and I will always share the highest regard and gratitude for the staff who fell in love with our loved one as if she were there own. Thank you Berkley West from the bottom of my heart for working with our family to make everything go smoothly. It made all the difference. –Julia

I made the choice to move my 80 year old mother who had advanced pancreatic cancer from a facility in Mar Vista to Berkley West so that she would be near her primary care physician for hospice care. From the moment that she arrived at Berkley West, I could see that it was going to be a totally different experience both for her and for us, her family. The nurses were very gentle and kind and didn’t move her around like she was a sack of potatoes. They called several times to notify me of a change in her status, whether it was refusing to take medication or not eating. Unfortunately, the last call they made to me was to tell me she appeared weakened and that we should come. The staff was very kind and brought chairs in for the entire family and kept checking in with us. My mother passed very peacefully surrounded by family several hours after we arrived. The staff were very supportive and caring to the entire family, providing tissue and hugs. She had only been there 4 days and a nurse I didn’t even know came up and gave me a hug and expressed her sorrow. Even several days later when I went to settle my bill, the social worker came out to try to help me work out a plan for dealing with a less than helpful bank when I was trying to locate the deed to her burial plot. I can honestly say that this facility goes above and beyond!

I admit I am a little late in writing this review. Last summer, I had to make one of the hardest choices a daughter ever had to make. My sister, mother and I had to choose a skilled nursing facility for our father who had just suffered a moderate stroke. Luckily for us, we had insurance. In a matter of hours– the Hospital in which my father was admitted as inpatient informed us that he would be discharged and we would have to choose a NURSING home ASAP! we had to make a choice and it was hard. It was agonizing and stressful as we never had to do this before. The staff, doctors and nurses at Berkley were great. My father was well taken care of. The facility was clean, the staff is attentive and patient… even when the patients are difficult. The staff was always ready to answer our questions and take care of Dad’s multiple needs. The physical therapists on staff got Dad back on track and ambulatory in a matter of weeks. His multiple medications were also delivered properly and physician visits scheduled. They even took the time to train us on how to help him at home. This was one of the most stressful times for our family and was made easier with the help of Berkley West. I can’t thank them enough. The staff was like an extended family to us at our time of need. I’ve heard horror stories about nursing homes, but Berkley West put my mind and heart at ease when caring for my father.