HealthONE Behavioral Health and Wellness Center - Aurora

"I stayed here when I was 15, 3 years ago. Overall, the food was alright, the rooms were nice and nurses were kind. Possibly my best inpatient experience. I am hoping they no longer employ Dr. Zachary Robinson, who I strongly believe should not be working with children or the mentally ill. Very unnerving guy who abused his position of power when evaluating me."

"The service from the front office staff has been terrible. I have had a handful of situations where I requested a specific visit and it was not done correctly on their end and I was told I was at fault. From the start of discussion with the staff I clearly stated NUMEROUS times l wanted a tele health visit and confirmed it was and each time it has been overlooked and done incorrectly on their end where they tell me it’s a no call no show when time of my apt comes. With that it has taken me up to 8+ times and over 20+mins to reach someone at the office to verify what the issue was or in general. Have not had a good experience."

"Stress and helplessness is what this place will bring to all loved ones involved. Medical staff will pretend to care at first to lure you into unknowingly sending your daughter to this facility for a “mental health evaluation”. After admission and signing of paperwork they then become unresponsive. You are shocked when you find out this evaluation is them holding your daughter hostage at a psych ward. They restrict visitation. I was forced to wait a full whole day to even see her and no exception was made even when I begged for it. They allow weekend visitation so luckily was able to see her Saturday. They only allow 1 hour. Although I am not a doctor nor claim to be one, I could clearly see my daughter back to her normal self and perfectly fine after getting sufficient sleep. Who knows their daughter better than someone who raised her since birth? I was left disturbed and puzzled why she was still there or why she couldn’t come home and get treatment with the support of her loved ones. This is where M1 mental hold comes into play. Look it up. They can involuntarily force you to stay there for 3 days. Fortunately they do allow calls but when asked about her progress they would just lie straight to my face about calling back or giving any sort of updates. Bad behavior by the patient? They’ll say it’s due to mental illness/drug abuse and make you stay even longer. Did I mention an isolated room where they lock you in by yourself if you retaliate in any way? Oh and that causes a mandatory 10 day stay. This place is supposed to help mental illness? It exacerbates it. What this place does is actually turn you insane because you are around insanity. Nurses tell you they can’t share any information. Maybe they cared at first but no signs of any empathy anymore. Probably just following orders and now there for a paycheck. Doctors take advantage of credentials and are mostly absent to what really goes on so don’t expect to hear back from them at all. This place is suitable for the insane but it is an inhumane act to force normal individuals to stay there. My daughter was experiencing severe alcohol withdrawals and this is the place you decide to ultimately put her in? My family is Latino so I have a feeling they discriminate towards POC due to what I saw. Had anxiety and depression before? This place will make it 1000x worse. It’s a shame this place is able to operate as it does. This system is seriously flawed."

"I feel compelled to share my experience with this facility, which I found deeply disappointing and concerning. My brother was admitted here, a decision that, in our view, was made without proper justification. I have serious reservations about the involvement and decision-making of the attending physician, Dr. Erin K. Smith, as well as the other medical staff. It appears to us that the duty of care was not adequately met, and there seems to be a lack of substantial involvement from the medical professionals in charge, raising questions about their practices. Furthermore, the use of the M1 hold, which mandates a 72-hour retention for assessment, seems to be applied without thorough consideration of individual circumstances. This approach, we feel, could potentially exploit the vulnerabilities of patients and their families. I strongly believe that such practices should be scrutinized and that this facility should be held accountable for its actions. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!"

"On the ambulance ride over, the EMT was telling me I couldn’t be going to a better place and they knew exactly what they were doing etc etc. well that’s not true. During my admission, they took me into this room to do a body scan and the room had windows and someone came in during the scan so I was there in my underwear for everyone to see. Very embarrassing, humiliating, and dehumanizing. The first day I did stickers. Really? I was suicidal and they had me play with stickers. My intake and medications were given based on my intake with the nurse, I never saw a doctor. When the night shift came on, (and I had beeen there since 1), they offered me Ativan which I accepted and wondered why I hadn’t been offered it when I first arrived hours sooner it would have made those hours a lot easier. The food is terrible. I was withdrawing from alcohol so already experiencing nausea and the slop they served didn’t help. I found it quite rude when the staff would sit behind the desk and eat knowing that we we had limited supply to food and we were eating gruel while they were eating Chipotle. I think it is equally messed up for them to be sitting there playing on their cell phones in front of us when we are not allowed to have our phones. Once they started me on the Ativan, which, like I said, I’m not sure why they waited several hours until after I got there to do so, I was sleeping most of the time. The one good thing that I will say is, they’re pretty good at giving you pretty free range of the television set. They are a bit inconsistent of whether they will just let you take the remote or whether they will go with you and change it themselves. Inconsistency was a big theme that I noticed during my stay. The beds were terrible. The linens were musty. The pillows were paper, thin, and even two of them stacked together weren’t even as thick as one of the ones that I had at home. They had no sofas or other chairs meant for relaxing in and you can only sit in a regular chair for so long. I would like to shout out Bonnie and Maria. They were both very nice and very accommodating. They made sure that my needs were met and went above and beyond to help us. However, other than that, I’m not impressed, and I feel like I was in daycare not in a mental health hospital. I barely met with a doctor. I don’t know anything more than I went in with. I never ever met with the caseworker. They barely had any books and they kept them locked up. Really? Even in jail there’s a bigger selection and you can get at them whenever. The groups were kind of a joke. It just felt like more of a place to go to where someone could babysit me. Next time if I have a choice of mental hospital, it will not be this one. There was also no comradely among the patients. Everyone kept to themselves, even people who were roommates nobody talked to anybody. it was hit and miss with the staff. You could tell that they genuinely cared about you and your well-being or that they just slap the blood pressure cloth on you and they were just there for the paycheck. It makes a huge difference when after shift change, they came in and said hey, my name is so-and-so and this is what I do. Please come to me if you need anything. That way we know who is who and who to go to. It was just a very uncomfortable atmosphere to be in. The one nurse especially Hammish or some thing like that is especially aggressive and rude. I know it takes a certain type of personality to work someplace like this, but not every mental patient is the same and you can’t treat us all the same because that’s not fair to us. We each deserve the same amount of care and patience as the next guy and I did not feel that from most of the staff at this facility. I’m not quite sure why I was forced to stay there for 72 hours I don’t know anything that I didn’t know already. If I ever self admit, it most certainly will not be here. For someone who is already going through a mental health crisis as it is, this place is just not the place to help you get through it. Do not recommend."