industry & reform
was fine to administer risperidone up to
three times daily.
“Well, if they’re saying that we informed
them that that’s something that we would
do at home, it’s 100 per cent incorrect,”
McCulla said.
Remembering an interaction with the
nurses who questioned McCulla and her
sister as to what was wrong with their
father, she recalled replying, “You tell us.
He is no longer the man he [was when he]
came in.”
INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS
“We’re not funded for how happy a
resident is.”
That’s one of the ways in which the
aged care system fails to incentivise good
practice, the royal commission heard.
Lucy O’Flaherty, who heads Glenview
Community Services in Tasmania and will
oversee the development of its Korongee
dementia village, said: “If we look at the
way the industry is structured, we are …
funded for the amount of medications
we’re giving, how many times we shower
someone and what meals we provide.”
Tamar Krebs, co-chief executive of
Group Homes Australia, said she would
like to see a voucher system that would
fund community or residential aged care as
soon as a consumer needs it.
Commissioner Richard Tracey welcomed
the change of tone for the hearings after
the weeks of harrowing testimony.
“It has been refreshing to hear how a bit
of innovative thinking can produce good
outcomes,” he said.
BUPA UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT
The second week of Sydney’s commission
hearings heard testimony detailing the
death of an aged care resident at a Bupa
facility in late 2017.
Two daughters recounted walking
into the building and hearing “this loud
rumbling that was so disconcerting and
scary I think that as soon as my sister heard
this, we ran”.
The sound was their mother (DE),
struggling for breath in her final hours. DE
died four weeks after she was admitted
to the Bupa facility in Willoughby, Sydney,
aged 70.
DE’s daughters outlined the poor care
their mother had received, which included
bed sores, malnutrition and poor upkeep of
her hearing aids and glasses, leaving her, at
times, essentially deaf and blind.
DE had no communication abilities
and was unable to feed herself, and the
daughters were soon worried that she was
not being fed properly by staff.
“Every time we would go, Mum’s face
was more sunken and she was becoming a
lot more unwell.”
The daughters tried bringing this up with
staff, but say their concerns fell on deaf
ears. The daughters told the commission
that they and other family members could
successfully feed their mother when they
visited. They say other health professionals
who visited Bupa knew it was an issue
as well.
They recalled an incident with a speech
pathologist who tried to teach them how
to successfully feed their mother to avoid
dysphagia.
“And she said to me, ‘Now I’m going to
show you a 3.5-minute video on how to
feed your mother so that there is no risk.’
“And I said to her, ‘Shouldn’t you be
showing this to the nurses here, because
I’m not here every day.’
“
When asked
whether she felt
that staff are
adequately trained
to provide care,
Mitchell gave a
blunt “no”.
“She said to me, under her breath,
‘There’s not a lot of point in that, and that’s
why I show the family members who are
here, because they’re usually the ones that
end up feeding them.’”
The commission also heard how DE,
who was originally moved to aged care
after a series of falls, was admitted to
hospital after only 36 hours spent in the
Bupa home, diagnosed with aspirant
pneumonia.
When talking to witness Maureen
Mary Berry – formerly the interim chief
operating officer of Bupa at the time DE
lived at the Willoughby facility – counsel
assisting Peter Gray discovered that
although the pneumonia was said by
Bupa staff to be the result of a pre-existing
condition, poor practice in that short 36-
hour period could have been to blame.
Gray read hospital notes from DE’s
discharge that explicitly state that DE
should be monitored “for signs of
aspiration/penetration, coughing, wet
gurgly voice with oral intake, reduced
chest health, and refer to medical/speech
pathologist”.
Berry admitted that BUPA had failed to
follow this advice.
On the day of her death, DE’s daughters
rushed to the facility after receiving a
confusing phone call from staff.
They found their mother breathing
heavily and in clear discomfort. It took
30 minutes for a GP to appear, they say.
He stayed in the room for about a minute,
before saying, “This isn’t really my area of
expertise,” and leaving.
Before coming to the commission,
DE’s daughters took their grievances to
the Australian Aged Care Complaints
Commissioner.
BUPA has been dogged by negative
headlines since the Four Corners
investigations. As of March, nine BUPA
facilities were under sanction for failing
to meet compliance benchmarks set
out by the Australian Aged Care Quality
Agency.
YOUNG ONSET DEMENTIA
The Sydney hearings ended with
testimony from witnesses with young
onset dementia. Trevor Crosby was
diagnosed with Lewy body dementia four
years ago at age 65. Crosby lamented
the lack of support people like he and his
wife, Jill, are afforded once they receive
a diagnosis.
He told the commission about the
Living with Dementia program he
undertook with Dementia Australia, which
he described as a “real turning point” for
him and Jill.
However, after the eight-week course, he
felt cut adrift.
“I felt cheated. The course was so good,
but there was no follow-up,” he said.
The last witness was the chief executive
of Dementia Alliance International, Kate
Swaffer. She was diagnosed with a rare
form of younger onset dementia 10 years
ago, aged just 49.
She told the commission that it wasn’t
until 12 months into her diagnosis that she
was referred to support services, which in
her words “set us up to fail”.
People diagnosed with dementia need
“intensive brain injury rehabilitation”, she
said, and called for people of her age
to be “supported to stay at work with
reasonable accommodations”, just as if
she had suffered an accident causing
brain injury. ■
agedcareinsite.com.au
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