I Would Have Traded Proximity
for Exceptional Care.
Why my mother’s experience defines the standard we strive to deliver for every Dunmore family.
When my mother first entered a memory care facility in the United States costing more than $10,000 a month, it was an extraordinarily traumatic time for our family.
Mom had Alzheimer’s. Eventually, even with private caregivers, we could no longer care for her safely at home. Moving her into memory care was one of the most traumatic decisions our family ever made.
We were paying for what we believed would be exceptional care. Cost wasn’t my primary concern. I wanted my mother to be comfortable, safe, treated with dignity and surrounded by people who genuinely cared about her.
During her first week, I witnessed five incidents that I will never forget.
On one occasion, I discovered feces on what were supposed to be her clean bed linens. On another, I found feces on her couch. Three other times, I found Mom walking around after having soiled herself, apparently without anyone noticing or helping her.
Meanwhile, I observed three caregivers sitting in separate corners of the common areas, legs crossed, looking at their phones while residents wandered aimlessly around the facility.
I was appalled.
I reported what I witnessed and made such an issue of the situation that part of the facility’s management team was replaced during that first week.
I tried desperately to force that facility to provide the level of care my mother deserved.
But eventually, they wore me down.
I found myself accepting mediocre care for my mother, something I never would have imagined tolerating when we first placed her there.
I even began to internalize the things I was being told—that Mom didn’t really know what day it was, or whether I had visited her.
Looking back, that troubles me enormously.
Because whether Mom remembered my visit was never the point. She was still my mother. She still deserved to feel safe, comfortable, loved and cared for.
We continued employing one of Mom’s former caregivers to visit the facility multiple times a day, at random times, simply to make sure she was being looked after properly.
We were paying a luxury memory care facility, and then paying someone else to make sure the facility was actually caring for my mother.
And here’s something I wish I had understood much earlier.
I would have gladly traded proximity for exceptional care.
I would have accepted having my mother farther away if I knew she was receiving genuinely extraordinary attention every day.
I would have paid more. I would have traveled farther. I would have done whatever was necessary.
The problem wasn’t that I was unwilling to spend the money.
The problem was that even spending enormous amounts of money didn’t guarantee the care she deserved.
The economics of conventional American elder care make truly individualized, one-to-one attention extraordinarily expensive and difficult to sustain.
And that’s what makes Dunmore different.
In the Dominican Republic, we can build a model around one dedicated caregiver for each acute assisted-living or memory-care resident during waking hours, with most frontline caregivers being nurses. Each home has a Team Lead, families have their own Family Lead, and physicians, therapists and other professionals support the entire care experience.
Dr. Janna routinely sits down with someone’s loved one and helps them with a puzzle. She spends quality time with residents during her visits. Her care goes beyond clinical observations: she gets to know the person, shares their day and gives them her time without rushing in and out of a room.
The cost of recreating that level of personal, daily physician attention in the United States would be beyond reason. At Dunmore, it is part of what we mean by exceptional care.
We can build accountability into the operation, including appropriate camera monitoring, because families should never have to wonder whether someone is paying attention.
And we can do all of this in beautiful, intimate residences, with an extraordinary quality of life, at a cost that would be extremely difficult to reproduce in the United States.
At Dunmore, mediocre care is not acceptable.
We strive for perfection.
Not perfection in the sense that every day will be flawless, or that aging and illness can somehow be made easy.
But perfection in the things we can control: attention, compassion, dignity, responsiveness, cleanliness, medical oversight and the genuine human connection between a caregiver and the person entrusted to their care.
We will never stop asking ourselves how we can do better.
I wish Dunmore had existed when my mother was alive.
I can’t change what happened to her.
But I can make sure her experience helps define the standard we strive to deliver for every Dunmore family.
Alex ShogrenFounder, Dunmore
