Carol Altmann – The Terrier

South West Coast MP Roma Britnell is taking action in response to a leaked copy of an explosive Lyndoch Living staff survey.

Could this be the moment when someone with power grabs the wheel and steers HMAS Lyndoch away from the iceberg?

Many of the long-suffering staff – past and present – will hope so.

Before I give you a snippet of the damning survey responses (brace yourself), I asked Ms Britnell if she had received a copy and what she intended to do about it.

She could have said, “sorry, Terrier-blogger-journo-social-media-brat, no comment”.

But, in a statement to The Terrier today, Ms Britnell said she was concerned, and that the survey mirrored issues raised by a number of people she had spoken to over recent months.

Ms Britnell said she will now meet with the Lyndoch board and CEO to ask what is being done. This is significant, because MPs don’t wade into troubled waters easily.

I can also confirm that the federal Member for Wannon, Dan Tehan, has asked the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission to investigate concerns raised earlier by constituents.

This, as we know, comes on top of growing unease among staff at the Warrnambool Medical Clinic, who – I suspect – are starting to understand why two GPs quit last April when that clinic was sold to Lyndoch Living for a total of $1.6m.

The WMC Practice Manager has also resigned and leaves in two weeks. (“Ahoy me hearties, iceberg ahead!”)

First, here is what Ms Britnell had to say in full:

“I received a copy of the report via email on Tuesday morning and had some concerns about its contents.

I am now seeking a meeting with the Chief Executive Officer of Lyndoch Living and Members of the Board to discuss these matters.

I also note I have been approached by several different people over the past few months who have shared with me concerns which relate to the matters contained in the report.

Lyndoch is a vital institution in our community and it’s really important it retains its long held reputation as a high quality home for the elderly and a great place to work.

That’s why it’s important concerns raised by staff or residents are appropriately addressed – that is information I will be seeking from the CEO and Board. “

 

One wonders how much longer the Lyndoch board can continue to deny the obvious, which leapt off the page in the leaked confidential staff survey.

Lyndoch received the survey results in January, they went to the board in February, but still it has done nothing to address the damning assessment of the CEO’s leadership that was contained within.

Here is a snippet which I believe people need to see in the public interest, not just the watered down version as reported in the Warrnambool Standard:

“A small sample of around 10-15 respondents stated that the CEO’s culture of intimidation, manipulation and bullying greatly impacted their safety, health and wellbeing. They said they witnessed her bullying others and making decisions in regard to her own self-interests and not the organisation as a whole.”

Read that again. Up to 15 people is not a “small sample”. That is shocking, especially when you consider the Lyndoch corporate area has about 40 staff in total.

For even one person to claim to be enduring the “CEO’s culture of intimidation, manipulation and bullying” is one too many.

To have 10 to 15 warm-blooded, real people feeling that their “safety, health and well-being” is suffering, is disgraceful.

And what has been done in response?

Instead of leaping into action, Lyndoch hired a consultant – yes, another big fat fee on the public dime – to offer the board a counter assessment of the results:

“Look, over there! Over there! Nothing to see here!”

In LyndochLand™ , it’s the fault of the senior staff, the older staff, the kitchen staff, the person who takes out the bins on a Friday, the woman walking past the Lyndoch Milk Bar, the person who posted a nasty comment on Facebook, a pesky little journalist….anybody, anybody, but the person at the very top of the tree.

Is that a cover up, pure spin or clever public relations?

I don’t know, but what I do know is that the board – at the end of the day – will wear any consequences of not acting decisively.

The board are the people who are at risk of serious reputational damage. In light of these survey results, they can no longer say that they didn’t know.

And it is poor Lyndoch, owned and loved by the community for 60 years, that could face both reputational and significant financial damage.

Compensation payouts of hundreds of thousands of dollars are being awarded to individuals who have suffered workplace bullying and harassment. This is not a game.

On top of that, consider this: if the iconic Warrnambool Medical Clinic was to fall apart because of similar issues filtering into its workplace, then there is no more “goodwill” and Lyndoch will have paid close to $2 million* for fresh air.

All this before even a sod is turned on the new $12 million medical centre to be built at Lyndoch to house the WMC and up to 20 GPs.

The pushback against those who dare to speak up and out is enormous – it’s all just a “social media” beat up – and meanwhile the HMAS Lyndoch lurches ever closer toward the iceberg.

At least now Ms Britnell and Mr Tehan are helping to lower the lifeboats.

There is a Lyndoch board meeting next Tuesday: we can only hope that the board leaps in and starts paddling.

*The $2 million includes $1.6m for the WMC and $300,000 for the Health Spot, plus purchase fees and charges.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

A lot of people have asked me lately whether I was sued for defamation by Lyndoch Living CEO Doreen Power and if it all ended up in court.

The answers are: yes and no. Let me explain.

After I wrote a series of four stories late last year about my concerns around Lyndoch, its direction, and its leadership, I received a letter from Melbourne law firm K&L Gates, who represent Lyndoch Living.

(The Gates part, by the way, relates to the firm’s founder, the father of US billionaire Bill Gates, so this was not some tin pot law joint with broken blinds and wonky lampshades, but a downtown Collins St law firm with city views and a serious letterhead.)

K&L Gates wrote that they were acting on behalf of the Lyndoch CEO who was:

“disturbed by a series of recent articles, written and published by you on (The Terrier), attacking our client’s reputation and character”.

Gulp.

Naturally, I felt slightly sick, but only slightly, because in 30 years’ of working as a journalist in search of the ever-elusive truth, I have received one or two of these letters before. The scary bit was that I now work alone.

The letter then set out the CEO’s particular grievances – or imputations.

You can download the whole letter here, it is not confidential, but here is the list:

• That in carrying out her functions as CEO of Lyndoch, our client bullies and intimidates staff and other third parties;
• That in carrying out her functions as CEO of Lyndoch, our client manipulates staff by psychological means into doubting their own sanity;
• That in carrying out her functions as CEO of Lyndoch, our client unfairly favours some people over others;
• That in carrying out her functions as CEO of Lyndoch, our client has caused a detrimental impact on the care of Lyndoch’s residents;
• That in carrying out her functions as CEO of Lyndoch, our client lacks transparency and endorses secrecy;
• That in carrying out leadership roles as CEO of Seymour and Plenty Valley Community Health, our client destroyed the culture and workplace environment of those places, and caused irreparable physical and/or psychological harm to their staff;
• That our client is a disinterested CEO who does not care about her staff or the residents of Lyndoch; and;
• That our client is unfit to be the CEO of Lyndoch or of any other organisation.

Defamation law is an important law and one that I take extremely seriously.

It is there to protect all of us from malicious untruths, but it can also be used by powerful people to “chill” journalists from investigating or writing about issues of public interest.

Back in the days when journalists worked in robust newsrooms with bottomless budgets, such legal battles could be fought with vigour.

Those days are almost gone.

Now, like many journos out on their own, I have no newsroom and no budget for legal battles, and I rely entirely on insurance via my union, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance.

Like all journos, I also rely on thorough research and credible sources to get things right in the first place, but it is one thing to argue a fact like, “you have no money” compared to “why do you have no money?”

WHY is the very guts of investigative journalism, but it is time-consuming, expensive, and it attracts law suits. Many newsrooms have given up on it, but it is what I do.

So I got my legal letter, paid for by Lyndoch, which confirmed that the aged care home which once looked after my own Mum was now threatening to sue me.

This was serious and it’s precisely why I waited until my Mum passed away last April before I started to write this current series of stories: as feisty as Mum was, she would have been worried sick.

Over the holiday period K&L Gates talked to my lawyers and vice versa. Letters were exchanged.

And in the end, my insurers decided not to fight the imputations, because who knows if I would win or lose in trying to prove the “why?”

I agreed to pull the stories from the website and remove them from Facebook and I cannot publish them again. I also agreed to pay costs.

All of this cost me $2000 in an insurance excess, but, because of you wonderful beings, it actually cost me $200, because Foxy the Fighting Fund kicked in and helped me to cover that excess.

Did it go to court? No.

Did The Terrier win or lose? I will leave that up to you to decide.

Is it important that we keep going? More than ever.

Defamation can be designed to “chill”, and frighten journalists into tightening their buttocks, but you know what? I am being cautious, but also reaching for an extra coat.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Apologies for the delayed post about the unveiling of Lyndoch’s newest board member, biologist Prof Rob Wallis, which was reported in the local paper on Wednesday and announced to staff yesterday (Thursday).

Prof Wallis, we now know, was approached (by someone) last September to join Lyndoch as a member and board member, which has proven to be harder than getting into the Freemasons.

But Prof Wallis made the cut and accepted the post in February. (ASIC was notified on 2 March.)

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Remember that $1.3 million of public money paid by Lyndoch Living for the  “goodwill” of the Warrnambool Medical Clinic?

Well, the Practice Manager – the chief administrator – has resigned, giving just four weeks’ notice after what I understand is more than a decade in the job.

A big slice of that goodwill is going and is not easily replaced.

This latest resignation also follows two experienced GPs who resigned on the spot last April when Lyndoch laid out its plans as the new owners of the clinic and, I have a hunch, there will be more departures to come.

Nursing and administration staff have also left under circumstances which have been raising questions. (Does this sound familiar to you? If you are long-term readers of The Terrier, it should.)

The alarm bells have been ringing and now the house of Lyndoch is burning and I am not sure how much more the board can just keep explaining it all away.

Smoke? Smoke? That’s not smoke, it’s just a little sea mist rolling up from the mouth of the Hopkins River.

Until this latest bombshell, I had intended to tell you tonight about the official rejections of the latest people who applied to become members of Lyndoch, so I will squeeze this in too.

They include a recipient of the Order of Australia medal, Vicki Jellie, a former south-west MP Adam Kempton (who was once a Lyndoch board member), a former business journalist Steve Hynes (who has applied twice), and a bloke by the name of  Jim Burke, a familiar name on The Terrier Facebook page, who has a tidy little resume which I will repeat here:

“Jim served in the Royal Australian Navy for 24 years in communications and intelligence roles.

On retirement from the Navy, he was employed by Defence Signals Directorate (now Australian Signals Directorate) for 14 years before working for the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security as a Senior Investigation Officer until his retirement in 2009.

His final roles in ASD and IGIS were compliance and governance related.”

Yet Jim – and Vicki and Adam and Steve and Lynn and all the others – received a  “thanks but no thanks” letter from Lyndoch in the mail.

This is all the evidence we need, surely, to say the membership process has become corrupted by something or someone and is failing to uphold the spirit on which Lyndoch was founded.

Let’s make no bones about it, this is all about keeping power and control.

Because under the Lyndoch constitution, members have voting rights. They can call meetings. They can ask questions at the AGM about things like paying $1.3m for the Warrnambool Medical Clinic. They might even – gasp – try to become a board member.

And Lyndochland™ can’t have that.

But here’s the really shocking bit: the people who are choosing to exclude the community, are from our community, and that is what surprises and hurts locals the most.

The current board is prepared to go along with this charade. Why?

Because it is an absolute charade and it will come crashing down eventually, just as it has when this sort of exclusion and manipulation has been tried elsewhere.

In a small community, you can only get away with it for so long.

I hope the Lyndoch board remembers this: they are the ones who will be held accountable, they live here, they are part of us, and one day they will be asked to explain why those who worried for Lyndoch, who had no motive other than care and concern, were turned away.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

One of the many concerns swirling around Lyndoch Living is whether its plan to build a multi-million dollar medical clinic will send the place broke.

It is important to understand that when Lyndoch bought the Warrnambool Medical Clinic and the Health Spot for a total of $1.6 million, it did not buy any physical buildings.

Lyndoch does not own the WMC building on the corner of Liebig St and Raglan Parade: that building remains privately owned by a handful of people.

The $1.3 million cost for the WMC was almost made up entirely of buying the goodwill, which basically means paying a lot of money on the hope that patients will still keep coming to that clinic.

Indeed the cost of the WMC assets was only $153,000, presumably made up of some furniture, some tissue boxes and maybe a couple of boxes of sterile gloves in assorted colours thrown in for good measure.

As part of this goodwill, the doctors sign a contract that they will hang around for a certain time and I believe these contracts are for two years.

Some doctors with the WMC wanted no part of the sale to Lyndoch, so they left early last year.

(Doctors are contractors, so, just like a plumber or a carpenter, they can be contracted to work for a certain time, but they can also leave at the end of that time. This means GPs are in control of their destiny with a clinic, not the other way around.)

And here is the crunch: while Lyndoch has paid $1.6 million to buy two medical clinics, it is now going to spend many more millions – we don’t know how many – to build a brand new clinic at Lyndoch, on Hopkins Rd.

This clinic, according to Lyndoch’s own words, will include GPs, allied health services, radiology services and maybe even a dentist.

Holymaloolah. Talk about moving away from your core business of looking after the old folks!

And this is why so many people are nervous. There are too many unanswered questions and too many examples of regional medical clinics that have gone belly up in the past 18 months, including the Tristar Medical Group in Mildura, Traralgon and Wangaratta; the Gunnedah Mackellar Rural Health Service, and, closer to home, the Ballan District Health and Care which has a model very similar to what Lyndoch is planning and which last year received a State Government bail out.

Google them all for a sobering read on risk.

If a medical clinic is such a great move for Lyndoch, why can’t we see the business plan?

Does Warrnambool need a brand new medical clinic at Lyndoch? Is there the demand?

Will the elderly residents be forced to use the GPs – and other services – at the clinic? Will the Lyndoch staff?

How much will it cost? Where is all the money coming from? What are the expected returns?

So, so many questions and still no answers, yet the wrecking ball – which will see Tomlinson wing demolished to make way for this clinic – is just a few months away from swinging.