A short statement to illustrate the problems in navigating health care services in residential care – and the harm it can cause to quality of care.
Senior Counsel Assisting Richard Knowles (pictured above) has submitted the statement of 74-year-old Hamish MacLeod, who has lived in residential care since 2013 in two Melbourne facilities.
Mr MacLeod – who has a range of health problems including diabetes and macular degeneration and was unable to attend the hearings in person – says he has been forced to change his GP a number of times during his six years in care.
Earlier this year, his current GP sent him to hospital because of a build-up of fluid in his legs but the eight-hour wait in the emergency development saw him develop a pressure wound.
After waiting three hours to be taken back to his facility after discharge, Mr MacLeod was told his records had mistakenly been sent to another hospital, not his facility.
“What this goes to is the need for adherence to guidelines relating to discharge,” Mr Knowles stated. “It arguably also supports changes to existing discharge guidelines which generally only require that hospitals provide discharge information to a treating GP within 48 hours. Rather, they should also require in the case of people who are living in residential aged care that the information be provided directly to the residential aged care facility and that it be made available at the time when the person arrives at the facility.”
In another incident in October this year, Mr MacLeod developed shingles around his eyes and was prescribed eye drops by the facility’s GP. When these failed to heal, he made an appointment at a nearby GP who is located 650 metres from the facility. That GP treated the shingles and is now Mr MacLeod’s GP, but doesn’t visit the home so he must walk to see him when he has appointments.
“This evidence points to problems with the incentives that exist, arguably, to get GPs to attend on patients at residential aged care facilities,” Mr Knowles concluded. “It also goes to what provision is made for residential aged care staff to assist residents with the transfer of residents to external appointments of this kind.”
Mr MacLeod has also never seen a specialist at his facility and relies on volunteers, his sister or public transport when he needs to visit his eye specialist, but this is difficult – on a recent visit, the specialist injected his eye which made it a struggle to return home.
How many other residents also require similar care – but can’t leave the facility to receive it?
