Lateline/ Aged Care / Commonwealth Ombudsman
Complaints on aged care sent to the Commonwealth Ombudsman are fucked over . 80% of complaints of these complaints are disregarded the remainder are never handled correctly. Section 15 of the Act requires that systemic problems be brought to the attention of the Minister though this is never done.
The fat ugly Alison Larkins, who was acting as Commonwealth Ombudsman was referred to the Australian Public Service Commission for failing to uphold her responsibility under the Ombudsmans Act.
Steven Sedgwick the Australian Public Service Commission fucked over the complaint under S41. This clearly shows that the Commonwealth Ombudsman is protecting corrupt and corrupt conduct in Government Agencies and the Australian Public Service Commission is protecting the failure of the Commonwealth Ombudsman to carry out its required duty under Ombudsmans Act.
I also wish to mention that Lateline reported that anyone who tried to expose this tragedy into Australia's most vulnerable in a "wikileaks" was risking a TWO YEARS Imprisonment.
It would be similar to the situation I find myself in where , by exposing a corrupt Senior Management at ITSA or now AFSA Adam Toma the corrupt Enforcement Manager is attempting to have me also jailed.
Adam Toma can now come kiss my Arse because his obvious intimidation will clearly not work on me and now he finds himself in a situation where he must appear in court and defend the systemic corrupt conduct at AFSA.
Clearly also anyone else at AFSA who wants to complain about me exposing them will also have to give evidence in court on why the protection of FRAUD is acceptable in this Government Agency
Aged Care Accreditation In the Spotlight
Tonight a former senior victorian public servant whose mother
died recently in a nursing home speaks out against a system he says is
failing Australia's most vulnerable elderly. And lawyers believe
families might be able to sue the Commonwealth for not safeguarding
adequate standards of care in nursing homes and some families are
pushing for a class action.
Transcript
EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: Tonight a former senior Victorian public servant whose mother died recently in a nursing home speaks out against a system he says is failing Australia's most vulnerable elderly.Lawyers believe families might be able to sue the Commonwealth for not safeguarding adequate standards of care in nursing homes.
Some families are pushing for a class action.
Margot O'Neil reports, and a warning this report contains disturbing images.
MARGOT O'NEILL, REPORTER: At this nursing home in northern Australia a tick-infested dog wanders through a dilapidated building and yet Star of The Sea nursing home on Thursday Island was fully accredited by the Federal Government last year. That decision has since been modified and new management has been given until next month to repair its buildings.
Local Federal MP Warren Entsch is outraged the facility can't get more federal money.
WARREN ENTSCH, FEDERAL MP: Somehow or other they were quite happy to tick it off last year and say righto we're going to give you three years of accreditation at a time when there was still these problems.
MARGOT O'NEILL: The Federal Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency safeguards care in nursing home through a checklist of 44 standards.
They include providing "appropriately skilled and qualified staff" and "appropriate clinical care."
Australia has a near perfect score of 95 per cent of homes gaining full 44 out of 44 accreditation for three years. Adrian Nye's mother was in a Victorian nursing home that was given full accreditation at the same time she developed such serious leg infections, she spent four months in hospital.
ADRIAN NYE, FORMER CHAIRMAN, VIC MANAGED INSURANCE AUTHORITY: In my mother's case its quite bizarre because while my mother was in a bed at that facility the accreditation authority was in their doing its annual or triennial accreditation review. And no blemish was identified in the course of the review.
MARGOT O'NEILL: Adrian Nye, a former senior Victorian public servant, complained about the poor wound management for his mother. The accreditation team was sent back in and the home had to revamp its procedures.
A former chairman of the Victorian insurance scheme including medical indemnity, he believes the two-day accreditation visits was inadequate. He's calculated the accreditors would have needed more than twice as long to do a thorough job.
ADRIAN NYE: Now it's just incredible, either they did things so superficially that nothing could be identified, which is probably my suggestion, or they failed to do some of the things they said they've done.
MARGOT O'NEILL: Critics say accreditation is too much about paper work and box ticking of processes rather than actual clinical outcomes.
There are numerous examples of homes that have been fully accredited only to be involved in media scandals shortly after. Like the home that had no staff at all rostered on overnight, or the fully accredited home that had a mouse infestation.
Staff in contact with Lateline say homes spend weeks preparing for accreditation and allege that some homes deceive accreditors.
An aged care consultant told us "some nursing homes bring in "a quality co-coordinator whose sole job was to present files full of evidence of quality care and fulfilment of standards. Where evidence could not be found it was simply manufactured."
A carer told us "most employers train staff to respond to accreditation agency visits. I have been interviewed several times and often your supervisor is present. I have been in difficult situations where if I told the truth I would be sacked."
The accreditation agency also does unannounced annual spot checks but the results are not public.
For many families and staff the only recourse when things do go wrong is the aged care complaints scheme run by the Department of Health.
ADRIAN NYE: The majority of my life has either been working in the bureaucracy, drafting schemes of this complaint sort or acting as a consultant critiquing their success.
MARGOT O'NEILL: His verdict on the complaints scheme?
ADRIAN NYE: Oh it's a very sick puppy. It's actually a complaints scheme without any investigatory curiosity or power, it's very much a social work model where wanting to hold hands and reconcile and conciliate. But for something as grave as an allegation of gross negligence leading to a wound that puts your mother in an acute hospital for four months with severe pain effects and a risk to life, something more than Kumbaya is required.
MARGOT O'NEILL: The nursing home promised to do better so the matter is now considered closed. But Adrian Nye is left wondering how did the wound start, was it because of poor care, the complaints scheme says it couldn't decide.
ADRIAN NYE: The response to that was, oh we're getting different stories, they say its sunburn, your plastic surgeon says it pressure it's all a bit difficult, the record's are a bit funny, we can't conclude anything definitive. Well, I reckon the cops would have a different view to the same set of facts.
MARGOT O'NEILL: Getting at all the relevant information is a problem for families. The Aged Care Act describes any information relating to the affairs of nursing home providers as "protected information". So a version of aged care WikiLeaks could land you in jail for two years.
ADRIAN NYE: The accreditation agency that ought to use transparency as the, to use the cliche, the sunshine that can keep all this stuff clean and spick and span, it's exempt from FOI. It hides behind the corporate veil of being a company, what's that about?
MARGOT O'NEILL: Industry also believes the accreditation and complaints schemes need reform.
PATRICK REID, LEADING AGED SERVICES AUSTRALIA: I think certainly that more transparency is required. I think the results need to be shared and without that, without more information it is very hard to improve the service.
MARGOT O'NEILL: Lawyers from Slater and Gordon say the Commonwealth could find itself the subject of legal action over nursing home standards, maybe even a class action.
ANDREW BAKER, SLATER AND GORDON: If it can be shown that the Commonwealth owes a duty of care towards the residents of those facilities in terms of its accreditations and it can be shown that they're accreditations that shouldn't have been given or renewed, then there is a potential for people to have a claim against the Commonwealth.
MARGOT O'NEILL: The possible class action is being led by marketing consultant Patrea Salter who's battled for years with a nursing home over her father's care.
PETREA SALTER, DAUGHTER: He's an 84-year-old Australian who has done so much for Australia and he's being made out to be a liar. All his suffering, all his screams for help, all his cries for help, all my cries for help from everyone in the Government, from the scheme are just ignored. It's just a dreadful, dreadful situation. In Australia we should not treat our elderly like this.
MARGOT O'NEILL: Margot O'Neill, Lateline.
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