Surprisingly for a now infamous day, nobody can or is prepared to say definitively who did what in detail at the aged care facility, especially around ransacking the building, extracting files, food, medications, computers, equipment and more.
What we can tell you is what we have been told by people on the ground.
To recap, ‘the event’ as it is now being referred to in the media and by Sen. Colbert, was created by a dispute over money.
It appears to be between the owner of the retirement village and aged care facility and the registered care provider for government funding, People Care, all owned by 77-year-old Arthur Miller (pictured below), and HelpStreet, a conglomerate of allied care support services, founded by Englishman Kris Bunker (pictured below).
Both sides have lawyers engaged and HelpStreet refers all enquiry to a PR company.
A resident at the Earle Haven facility says he believes Arthur Miller, a Gold Coast businessman, bought Earle Haven Retirement Village in 2001 from the original owner Arthur Earle.
In 2002 he bought the adjacent aged care facility, which he then went on to operate. He wastrading as Miller Enterprises but somewhere changed the name to People Care.
Today the village has 426 independent living villas, 110 assisted living units and the 104-bed aged care facility.
In the last few weeks People Care gave notice of cancelling Health Street’s contract in August – then Thursday 11th July occurred.
UK-based Kris Bunker, has made several comments around the fact they have not been paid over several months.
He stood before the media and delivered this statement:
“I’m devastated. This situation is unprecedented and very complicated. In seven years since I founded HelpStreet, I’ve never experienced anything like ‘what’ I saw last week, it was heartbreaking. We have been informed today by our banking partner, just now, that all of the monies, are being, are in the process of being funded to residents.”
“Like all of you I have serious questions over what happened to resident’s medication. We know People Care have security cameras in Earle Haven and we are calling on People Care to release the video footage and it will show exactly what happened. We are doing everything we can to assist the Federal Department with their enquiry and fully support a police investigation. We back union calls for Federal Government to scrutinise the aged care industry”.
Arthur Miller has briefly told the media that all the residents in the retirement village are ‘safe’, referring to the value of their homes. Otherwise there has been little communication from him or any representatives of People Care.
We are told Federal Police commenced their investigation on site yesterday.
No doubt they too will ask for the CCTV footage and we will eventually hear the full story.
