Last week, the ABC’s Four Corners announced it would air an investigation led by journalist Anne Connolly into Australia’s deadliest aged care coronavirus outbreak – last night, it delivered.
Connolly was present on site and in the homes of family throughout the protests and seeking answers from Anglicare and NSW Health.
Titled ‘Like the Plague’, the 45-minute program alleged that NSW Health had a policy of keeping residents in the home for treatment – unlike the previous outbreak at BaptistCare’s Dorothy Henderson Lodge where 80% of the 16 residents who tested positive were transferred to hospital – because the health authorities feared the virus spreading to the wider community.
18 of the 19 residents would go on to die in the home.
NSW Health in charge
It is clear from the report that from early on, NSW Health was running the show with even families who had negative family members in the Western Sydney home told that they could not remove their relatives.
In one case, a family produced an email from Anglicare in which they were advised if they withdrew their family member – a man aged in his 90s living with dementia and tested negative – NSW Health could charge him for breaching Public Health orders with a fine of $11,000- or six-months’ imprisonment.
The man in question later tested positive for the virus and died shortly after in the home.
Families staging protests for access
The program is not so much an attack on aged care – nevertheless, it identifies a number of failings at the home that would have the lay person insisting that their parent be transferred to hospital.
Communication was a major one, the cameras following families early on as they stage protests outside the home for access to relatives two weeks into the outbreak.
One woman tells the cameras she hasn’t spoken to her mother for two-and-a-half weeks, while another says they were only informed of their relative’s positive diagnosis after accidentally calling one of the nurses.
Signs of systems breaking down
Staffing was another key issue. While the staffing levels and training were not discussed, claims of residents spending two hours on the floor after a fall, waiting two-and-a-half weeks for a shower, washing their clothes in bathroom basins and eating frozen sandwiches indicate that the systems were breaking down or there was simply not enough staff.
Poor infection control was also pointed to by family members, who alleged there were high levels of cross-infection among staff and potentially residents, with some residents testing negative three or four times before returning a positive test.
COVID positive and negative residents in same wings
Daily testing for staff and the separation of positive and negative residents into different wings only happens around 17 days into the outbreak – at the same time as NSW Health begins investigating the possibility of PPE breaches among Government-contracted staff brought in to address staffing shortages.
Residents waiting for IV fluids and tests
The program also alleged that despite NSW Health’s promises that the Hospital in the Home program implemented at Newmarch House during the outbreak would deliver the same level of care as in a hospital, there were lapses in clinical care.
Families reported loved ones waiting a day for IV fluids to be given and longer for blood and urine tests.
Some family members who did transfer residents out of the facility said that their family member improved after being removed from the home.
In one case, a woman whose mother had tested positive and recovered was still deteriorating – when the daughter insisted that her parent be transferred to hospital, it was discovered she actually had pneumonia.
Ministers and Quality Commissioner decline interviews
The program was lacking in other voices, with Anglicare, NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard, the Aged Care Minister, Senator Richard Colbeck, and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner, Janet Anderson, all declining to be interviewed.
In some of these cases – presumably the Ministers – the investigations by the NSW Coroner and the Royal Commission were cited as the reasons why they couldn’t comment according to an interview with Anne Connolly on RN Breakfast earlier in the day.
ANMF Federal Secretary argues for more nurses
Annie Butler, the Federal Secretary of the Australian Nursing & Midwifery Federation (ANMF) was the only other ‘voice’ to be interviewed – and used her time on screen to advocate for more nurses in aged care.
Noting that there is no minimum training for care workers, Ms Butler said the current aged care staffing profile does not allow facilities to run a ‘Hospital in the home’.
“They weren’t transparent and clear,” she said.
Staffing a “monumental challenge”: Anglicare CEO
However, the program did feature clips of Anglicare CEO Grant Millard and Ms Anderson from the various webinars hosted for families and friends of Newmarch House residents.
The program makes it clear Anglicare was overwhelmed – Mr Millard explains in webinar footage that finding staff had been a day-to-day challenge.
“We reached out to our eight agencies and local hospital …a monumental challenge. It has been a monumental challenge,” he said.
The CEO’s widely-reported comments that he would have sent residents to hospital in hindsight were also used to underscore the message.
Janet Anderson under fire
The regulator does come in for more criticism with the program dwelling on the Commissioner’s appointment of Catholic Healthcare’s General Manager of Residential Andrew Kinkade, a former investment banker with two years’ experience in aged care as an independent advisor to Newmarch.
“It’s a symptom of the sector that the regulator themselves doesn’t appear to understand what is required,” Ms Butler says.
“You need a health expert, not a financial expert.”
“No profound failure”, Quality Commissioner says
A clip of Ms Anderson defending the provider and saying “there had been no profound failure here” was also stressed, along with the Commissioner saying: “I have been there since Day One” – despite never visited the home during the outbreak.
The program concludes that the NSW Coroner and the Royal Commission are investigating the outbreak, but pointing out that the Commission has already said it is not looking to apportion blame.
“I want someone to be accountable. I want someone to acknowledge that they let the virus spread like the plague in there,” one daughter states.
“Families want to know if their loved ones died to keep the rest of us safe,” Ms Connolly closes.
