The Anglicare CEO came out swinging over the weekend, saying that the home faced a severe shortage of staff and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and in hindsight, he would have sent the COVID-19 positive residents to hospital.
Mr Millard told Fairfax Media that NSW Health had wanted to contain the outbreak to the home, and had provided specialists under its ‘hospital in the home’ service.
“[But] If it is ‘hospital in the home’, then it [State Health] needs to provide the arms and legs to provide hospital-like service … we didn’t get them from State Health,” he said.
The CEO also said promised supplies of PPE fell through and gowns were initially rationed by the health authorities.
“I understand they were trying to meet their own needs but it was inadequate to deal with the problem we had. We were not supplied with adequate PPE,” he said.
Anglicare says it has spent $650,000 on PPE in the last month, including $21,000 every day at Newmarch (2,000 gowns, 12,000 gloves, 50 sets of goggles, 400 shoe covers, and 30 face shields).
In a separate interview on ABC Radio yesterday morning, Mr Millard said the COVID-19 positive residents should have been transferred to hospital at the start of the outbreak.
“Look if I had my time again, I would be insisting that those people who were COVID positive did go to hospital. In hindsight that would have been my preference, that they went to hospital,” he told Radio National’s Fran Kelly.
The CEO said the decision to keep residents at Newmarch House had been made jointly with NSW Health and Aged Care Minister, Senator Richard Colbeck, and every resident and family who requested hospital treatment received it.
“[But] Infection control practices, these are things that are much better established and it’s a sort of a bread-and-butter business in a hospital setting,” he said.
“Trying to do that in a residential aged care setting, it’s complex.”
NSW Health has responded to Mr Millard’s comments, saying national guidelines had been drawn up with the sector stating that residents would be transferred to hospital “only if their condition warrants” and they had provided infectious disease specialists, palliative and geriatric care specialists to Newmarch.
NSW Health’s Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant also told media on Monday morning that she “wouldn’t want to second guess” the decisions made.
“There was a process of having expert clinical advice about what was in the best interests for the residents of Newmarch,” she said.
“There are a lot of issues around balancing for elderly people, about moving them into a hospital environment.”
“When you move people from their environment, they are exposed to other risks such as falls risks, disorientation – and they get other health issues.”
The Commonwealth also released its own statement, saying that it sent in specialist staff after Anglicare had initially refused an offer of workforce support “because [it] claimed to have a network of services and contingency plans in place.”
Since the first case was identified at the Western Sydney aged care home on 11 April – five weeks ago – 37 residents and 34 staff have been infected – 18 residents have since passed away, two after they had recovered from the virus.
However, there have been no new infections among residents since April with NSW Health representatives stating last week that Newmarch House had turned a corner.
