Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Lyndoch Living bulldozed – illegally – a dirty great track through the back of Scoborio Reserve.

The road was cut through several weeks ago so trucks could drive in and out of the construction site for the $22m medical clinic.

No permit.

No authority.

No shame.

I recently asked the Warrnambool City Council if this road sliced through a public reserve had been approved by council officers.

No, it was not:

“The short roadway cut into Scoborio Reserve was done without Council consent. Council expects the affected area to be reinstated,” a WCC spokesman said.

There you have it.

The illegal roadway has now been shut off.

For those keeping count, this is the fourth time Lyndoch Living has failed to meet planning and permit laws in the past eight months.

That’s all for now, but rest assured the terriers are still digging.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

I miss writing posts for you and I miss hearing your thoughts and comments about those posts.

But for now, this is how it has to be.

To be here for the long haul, I need to stay small for now, and I wish I could tell you why, but perhaps you can join the dots.

For those of you who watch what is happening to journalists and the media around Australia, you may see a pattern emerging that is reflected, on a much smaller scale, in The Terrier.

Independent, investigative, analytical and punchy journalism is at a crossroads, especially in the regions.

It is getting so much harder to write stories based on the gathering of discomforting facts.

Lists are so much easier to write: the top ten burger joints, or the top ten bars.

I don’t want to write lists: to me, that is not the heart and purpose of journalism.

So for now I am staying small, curling into a ball, taking the whacks and hoping to continue to tell the stories that need to be told.

Thankyou for staying the course.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Tonight, two photographs.

The first was taken around 1pm last Thursday 24 June and posted to Instagram by building company Nicholson Construction.

It shows members of the Lyndoch Living executive and board whooping for joy at the turning of the first sod for the $22 million medical clinic to be built on site as of this week.

Nicholson Construction is building the clinic, which as we know, despite being a $22 million project, was not put to tender.

Instead, Nicholson was appointed automatically, having previously built the $13 million Swinton Wing extension.

The second photo captures a message sent from within Lyndoch less than three hours later.

This photo shows Lyndoch’s nursing staff pleading for help to fill shifts.

They needed help to cover not one, but 12 shifts across Swinton Wing and elsewhere. Twelve.

I don’t think Lyndoch’s nursing staff were whooping for joy.

Like them, I find it hard to celebrate the turning of the first sod on a $22 million clinic that has no discernible benefit to the  vulnerable and frail residents.

A $22 million clinic also won’t fill the empty or understaffed shifts.

This is the reality of life for so many staff at Lyndoch who are either run off their feet, or stressed out, and it’s a reality that I have been reporting on for two years.

In that time, I have watched the slow wearing down and silencing of the voices who dare to question or challenge this reality.

But there is only so much you can silence.

The consequences of these staffing issues were made brutally clear by the aged care watchdog in its report which Lyndoch perhaps hoped we would never see.

As was first reported here, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission spoke of residents in pain, a resident chemically constrained without consent, of falls, of wounds, and of the staff mix being “inadequate” to care for residents.

The commission was not whooping for joy.

And yet the horrors within this report have been all but buried under the first sod of the medical clinic.

This clinic will soak up millions and millions of dollars from Lyndoch and make not one squat of difference to the daily lives of residents living just 200m away.

I can’t stop thinking about the residents in that report, just as I can’t stop thinking about the scabies, or the suffering of other residents whose stories are yet to surface publicly.

This is why we must keep pressing on, in the face of mounting pressure to shut up, to stop being a spoil sport and, instead, whoop for joy.

I will whoop for joy one day: when we have all the answers to all the questions and Lyndoch is once again fully accountable to the community it serves.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Lyndoch Living today held a ceremony to celebrate the turning of the first sod on its $22 million medical clinic on Hopkins Rd.

Red rope and gold pillars, like those you see outside nightclubs, marked the VIP area on the razed Tomlinson site that remains littered with a pile of unanswered questions, like how will this benefit the residents?

There didn’t appear to be any VIPs other than the board who turned up today, and there was no sign of any residents.

Neither was there any care staff who, 100m away from the sod, are still battling with an unreliable nurse call system.

These staff must wonder, surely, how Lyndoch can afford to spend $22 million on a medical clinic while such basics as the call system remain dodgy.

This is the mobile system that connects care workers as they move from wing to wing and floor to floor.

It’s the spinal cord of the communications system and yet is not 100 per cent reliable and plagued by black spots.

This means calls between care staff can drop out, which, in an emergency, is a bit like us dialing 000 and nobody answers.

Lyndoch has known about these system failings for more than a year and yet, for whatever reason, it still hasn’t been fixed.

In that time, there has been at least one serious incident involving an emergency with a resident and the call system breaking down.

How such lop-sided priorities within Lyndoch remain acceptable is beyond me and I can only ponder, as the board lines up for photo opportunities with a shiny spade, if they are aware.

They are now.

[Once again, I am sorry, but I have comments turned off on this post until a current legal action involving Lyndoch is sorted.]

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

A short post tonight:

I recently learned that the $24 million medical clinic being built at Lyndoch Living did not go to tender.

I asked Lyndoch for comment on why it did not put the biggest project in its 69 year history out to tender so it could comfortably know it had received the best possible value for money.

There was no response from the Lyndoch chair.

There was no response from the Lyndoch media unit on behalf of the executive.

More than 1000 people are now asking questions about the purpose and financial viability of this medical clinic project, but no answers have been forthcoming.

You know, I used to fear that the Warrnambool community would lose control of Lyndoch, but it already has.

It lost control, without knowing it, almost three years ago to the day – 31 July 2018 – when the board and three other members of Lyndoch voted to tear up the old association rules that had been in place for decades, and become a company.

Lyndoch Living Inc became Lyndoch Living Limited.

It has not advertised publicly to fill a board vacancy since.

Under the new rules, it doesn’t have to. It could, but it chooses not to.

It has also not accepted a single membership application from the general public: even the current Mayor Vicki Jellie AM was rejected.

It has not publicly advertised its AGM since because under the new rules, it doesn’t have to. It could, but it chooses not to.

Snap, just like that, Warrnambool lost control of its aged care home and the right to have any meaningful input into its future.

The new constitution that governs Lyndoch Living Limited is being used to keep you quiet: we are the constrained without consent.

That’s all you need to know.

[I have turned comments off on this post, because Lyndoch Living is sending me lawyers’ letters; this time it’s not about my words, but yours. Lyndoch has access to ongoing and considerable funds to launch legal claims on behalf of individuals. I don’t. Given this, I am turning off all comments on Lyndoch pieces for the time being.]