Council flat death shock
Dead for five days and no one knew
Aman lay dead for five days in his Auckland Council flat before anyone knocked on his door. Neighbours in the council’s Leabank Court pensioner flats in Manurewa said they tried to get help several times over the past year for tenant Bryan Keith McGinty, who was believed to have been in his 70s, but no assistance was provided.
Auckland Mayor Phil Goff has asked for a full report on the case from the board of Haumaru Housing, a company 49 per cent-owned by the council, which took over management of Auckland pensioner housing in 2016.
“Should it be required, we will seek an independent review of how this matter was handled,” Goff said.
Manurewa ward councillor Daniel Newman has also asked for an urgent meeting with Haumaru to find out what went wrong.
“I consider that Mr McGinty should have been subjected to a needs assessment with a view to identifying appropriate rest-home care,” he said.
Neighbours said McGinty’s family had been trying for several years to put him into care, but he refused.
A person close to the family said: “He just went downhill after the death of his wife. He just withdrew into himself.”
Neighbours said he had been living at Leabank Court for about four years but kept to himself.
“He didn’t talk to anyone,” one said. Retired musician Hone Hohaia, 74, who picked McGinty up when he collapsed on the path a few days before his death, said that after he helped him back to his flat McGinty said: “Thank you very much, you can p*** off now.”
“To me, he needed looking after. This should never have happened.”
Another neighbour said she asked Haumaru four times to get him help,
the first time in July last year when he wasn’t seen for about 10 days.
Another woman said she helped McGinty walk back to his flat with his shopping.
“He had a heck of a job trying to walk.
“He was a loner but he seemed a nice chap to talk to, it’s just that he was very independent.”
After not seeing him for several days neighbours became concerned.
They had not seen his light on at night. They told a Haumaru employee but were frustrated that nothing was done, and finally on June 24 one neighbour rang Haumaru chief executive Gabby Clezy.
“Within an hour and a half she had the ambulance here doing a welfare check and they went in and found him dead,” the neighbour said.
“He’d been dead for five days, that’s what the coroner told the family.”
The neighbours said that when the council managed the pensioner villages directly before 2016, someone used to visit all the tenants every day.
But they said Haumaru’s community and cultural liaison officer visited only about once a month.
“She doesn’t come in, she’ll yell out, ‘Are you all right?’ And that’s it,” one tenant said.
Clezy said Haumaru, which is 51 per cent owned by the Anglican Church’s Selwyn Foundation, was a
“social landlord”, not a health service.
“We can refer them to services if tenants ask us to do that, but we don’t provide care or health services. We do provide tenancy management and property services,” she said.
“We engaged with Mr McGinty to help him to continue to live independently.
She could not comment further due to privacy issues.
Selwyn Foundation issued a short statement saying: “The Selwyn Foundation is deeply saddened to hear of Mr McGinty’s passing and would like to express our sincere condolences to his family. As a part owner of Haumaru Housing, we will provide all the support we can at this sad time.”
Auckland Council’s manager of council-controlled organisations, governance and external partnerships Alastair Cameron said he was also “extremely saddened” by the death and asked for a full report from Haumaru.
“We will also be seeking assurances from them around the robustness of their tenant management processes.”