GHOSTS OF HIBISCUS HOUSE
Death, millions of dollars spent at three inquiries, families torn, long-held friendships lost, whistleblower wife ignored, taxpayer bailouts … and those at the coalface say there is nothing to stop it happening again
HEALTH and financial experts say more than half of the aged care sector is on its knees and little has been learnt from the Earle Haven scandal that ripped families apart. This is despite taxpayers tipping $66 billion into the industry since 2014.
A Bulletin investigation into the collapse of Earle Haven high-care homes Hibiscus and Orchid houses, in which 69 vulnerable elderly were kicked out of home, can reveal:
A whistleblower wife was so concerned about a lack of food she brought in a sandwich every day for her husband; ex-Earle Haven residents in care elsewhere still wait half an hour for help; a former Earle Haven nurse says no changes have been felt at the frontline despite multiple inquiries.
HEALTH and financial experts say more than half of the lucrative aged care sector is on its knees and little has been learnt from the Earle Haven scandal that ripped families apart, claimed lives and cost taxpayers millions of dollars.
Union bosses of frontline nurses say severe cuts are still being made to staff and services at homes and a study conducted in March revealed 600 of 1000 facilities across Australia are bleeding money.
This is despite the Federal Government tipping $66 billion into the sector since 2014, a $650,000 bailout in June to stop five Queensland nursing homes going bust and an additional $205 million to help boost staff numbers during the COVID crisis.
Three investigations and millions of taxpayers’ dollars have been spent trying to expose the tragedy of the Earle Haven nursing home collapse, in which 69 vulnerable elderly were kicked out of home on the night of July 11, 2019.
Three people died in the following three months – one of whom had a fall the night of the evacuation – and long-held friendships were lost.
Investigations by the Aged Care Quality Safety Commission found 71 per cent of aged care patients were on psychotropic medication, and half had been physically restrained, before the collapse. Only one regsaid. istered nurse was caring for the high-needs residents on the night of the closure.
A year on from the scandal, it can be revealed:
A wife of one of the patients was so concerned she contacted the Federal Government five months before the evacuation. Authorities eventually called her in November of that year, four months after the home had been shut and evacuated. She took a sandwich to her husband every day because she was worried about a lack of food.
Doctors say they have never seen a worse “level of human distress” than on July 11, 2019 as they stood and watched vital equipment such as medication removed from the home.
Ex-Earle Haven residents in care elsewhere still wait half an hour for help.
No one has ever been charged over the scandal.
Earle Haven high-care homes Hibiscus and Orchid houses remain dormant, but are up for lease.
The global CEO of the subcontractor at Earle Haven has set up a new health company in the UK.
A former Earle Haven nurse says no changes have been felt at the frontline despite multiple inquiries.
Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union secretary Beth Mohle said not enough hurdles were in place to stop private providers shutting up shop and slashing staff.
“You would like to hope the system has learnt something from Earle Haven, but I don’t see any fundamental systemic change in care,” she said.
“Even in the context of COVID-19 they have continued to cut jobs, at a time when you need more care.”
The union has called for greater transparency into the federal funding of private facilities. Under law, there is no requirement to publicly report how the funds are spent.
StewartBrown aged care consultant Grant Corderoy said while Earle Haven was a unique case given there was a third party care provider, he expected a number of struggling facilities to close in the “next two to three years”.
A former Earle Haven nurse who still works in aged care said every night elderly, highneeds residents have to wait for help.
“The buzzers go constantly yet we are so desperately understaffed we simply cannot get there straight away,’’ she “The few staff rostered on for sometimes more than 90 high-care residents do their best. They work unpaid overtime to complete their rounds, but the conditions are deplorable.
“The aged care system in Australia has gone so far down the wrong path. They now blame the staff if something goes wrong, not those in charge of providing enough staff.”
In a detailed response to this investigation, the State Government – heavily criticised by some families over its decision to remove residents at Earle
THE AGED CARE SYSTEM IN AUSTRALIA HAS GONE SO FAR DOWN THE WRONG PATH. THEY NOW BLAME THE STAFF IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG, NOT THOSE IN CHARGE OF PROVIDING ENOUGH STAFF
Haven – said it had strengthened its evacuation planning following an inquiry by the Queensland Government health committee in September last year.
The Queensland Government supported all 12 recommendations made in the state review, but said it had no power to implement all of the recommendations since the regulation came under the purview of the Federal Government.
Deputy Premier and Health Minister Steven Miles said: “We’ve legislated nurse-topatient and staff-to-patient
FORMER EARLE HAVEN NURSE
ratios in our public residential aged care facilities.”
Councils on the Ageing (COTA) CEO Ian Yates believed many of the 23 recommendations to come from the Federal Government’s Carnell Inquiry into Earle Haven had either been enforced or were about to be.
“There is beefed up monitoring and consideration to give regulator more powers. Of course it requires a change to the Act which will come after the Royal Commission has reported,” he said.
The Royal commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety is expected to release findings in February 2021.
“Earle Haven was a unique circumstance, and I believe at a state level changes should be made to ensure it is a criminal offence for a subcontractor to abandon residents like they did, in such a deliberate way,” Mr Yates said.
“But Queensland Police found no breach of the criminal law, no one has been charged, and that is a shame.
Federal Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck said “significant progress” in implementing the 23 recommendations had been made, but did not specify which ones had been completed.
He said the regulator had been bolstered from January 1, 2020, and a free accounting service had been introduced.
However, no changes to frontline employee wages, staff ratios or care hours had been implemented since Earle Haven’s closure.
Mudgeeraba MP Ros Bates said despite the changes she was yet to receive a response to her calls for an investigation into the state’s 16 governmentrun facilities.
Gaven MP Meaghan Scanlon, who was at the facility on the night of the closure, said: “A systemic change is needed, more transparency in the system, minimum staffing levels. What happened at Earle Haven is proof we don’t have time to wait.”
Queensland Labor senator Murray Watt said the Government must come clean on what action it had taken.
“Sadly, if the Government’s previous track record in aged care is anything to go by, this action will be too slow for the residents who deserve change,” Senator Watt said.
MOST of us will end up in aged care in the twilight of our lives. We all like to think – indeed pray – we will be looked after with compassion, fed adequately and not left to sit in soiled clothes or to lie on a floor, having fallen and calling for help, hoping somewhere in those corridors an aged care worker will hear and come hurrying to help.
One year on from the debacle that shut down the nursing wing of the Earle Haven home at Nerang, in which 69 elderly residents were abandoned, there is little to indicate the aged care sector in Australia has improved so that such scandalous treatment will never be repeated.
People working in the sector and family members of some the residents who had to be evacuated that night from the place they called home are saying that across the board, nothing has changed.
Canberra has tipped $66 billion into the sector since 2014, along with a $650,000 taxpayer-funded bailout in June to stop another five Queensland nursing homes going bust, yet there is a lack of transparency in how that federal funding is used. That must change.
How do these homes struggle financially when there is taxpayer support, along with the money families pour in when a loved one goes into care? Why is there so much cost cutting – with, the Bulletin has been told, a continued shortage of staff even during the pandemic when numbers should have been beefed up? Why do carers and nurses end up working unpaid overtime? They care for the people they look after, that’s why, but do institutions and the wider public care?
As reported today, three investigations and millions of dollars have gone into probing the Earle Haven collapse and the state of the aged care sector, yet despite the Federal Government’s apparent acceptance of all 23 recommendations from the Carnell Inquiry, it seems the brakes remain on until the final findings of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety are reported – possibly in February next year. A local MP however says what happened at Earle Haven “is proof we don’t have time to wait’’. Yet too much time is wasted awaiting reports and findings that will tell Australians what they already know or suspect. Staffing has to be adequate and properly paid. Food must be good quality.
We need to know chemical restraints used to pacify difficult patients are not used to turn otherwise healthy elderly residents into zombies.
What happened at Earle Haven – on our Gold Coast – was a national disgrace. Not only were 69 vulnerable people, many with dementia, tossed out of their home while removalists took away medicines, furniture and vital medical records, but the Bulletin learned that an Aged Care Quality Safety Commission investigation the month before had found 71 per cent of them were on psychotropic medication, and 50 per cent had been physically restrained.
Three residents died within three months of the evacuation. One had suffered a fall the night they were moved.
This remains a tragedy – and all the more so since it has been lost from public gaze amid the preoccupation with the COVID-19 pandemic. Today is the first anniversary. Think of our most vulnerable citizens. There is no time to waste.