Answers on rest home fail to satisfy
Complainant who won legal action against provider asks minister for wider inquiry
Ainvestigations man who won a legal action over a rest home’s care for his late mother says a district health board’s response was toothless and failed other residents.
Robert Love met a top Ministry of Health official in Wellington this week, after writing to Health Minister David Clark about how DHBs keep a watch over rest-home providers.
Love’s 92-year-old mother, Freda, died in Waikato Hospital last year, and he later won a Disputes Tribunal case against Bupa, which operated the St Kilda rest home in Cambridge.
The tribunal found a failure to provide a reasonable level of care, and the case prompted Consumer NZ to call for an aged-care inquiry.
Love told the tribunal of 14 documented instances of care shortfalls. Once he found his mother shivering in a urine-soaked bed with the window open and call bell out of reach.
How the DHB responded to his concerns was much of the focus of his meeting on Monday with Emma Prestidge, the ministry’s group manager of quality assurance and safety.
He has now written again to Clark asking for the DHB’s actions to be reviewed, and suggesting a wider inquiry into aged care.
Love obtained under the Official Information Act a letter from Fiona Murdoch, Waikato DHB’s manager for the health of older people, to Bupa St Kilda’s facility manager, written the month after his mother’s death.
In the letter, Murdoch noted Bupa had acknowledged several instances of “less than satisfactory” care.
“We appreciate that Mr Love’s expectations around his mother’s care were difficult to meet and there appears to be a common theme of failed communications between different staff, senior staff, and Mr Love.”
Some areas for improvement would be highlighted to the audit team before the next scheduled audit of St Kilda, Bupa was advised.
Love said that letter would have been the end of the matter, had he not gone to the disputes tribunal. It was deeply insulting and showed a clear bias towards Bupa by the DHB, he said. No immediate spot audit or inspection of St Kilda rest home was ordered by the DHB. Robert Love
“Waikato DHB adopted Bupa’s language . . . [ the letter] evidences an almost collaborative approach between the DHB and Bupa.”
Murdoch said the DHB was sorry to hear Love took offence at the letter which was “an appropriate response [and] expressed our disappointment in their actions in several areas”.
Love’s concerns about his mother were fully investigated and HealthCert had since audited the rest home.
Jan Adams, managing director of Bupa NZ, said it was important to stress the company had no influence over a DHB review.
A Weekend Herald investigation found a third of the country’s 651 rest homes had recent shortcomings.