Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Meet Marie Bird, another highly skilled member of our community who has been locked out of joining Lyndoch Living.

Marie is among the 115 people who have been denied the right to become a simple member – not even a board member – of Lyndoch, our community owned aged care home.

Her application, like that of experienced nurse Kate Sloan who I wrote about last week, was rejected by the board without consideration or comment.

Let me tell you a little about Marie, who has lived in Warrnambool for 24 years.

She is a highly successful businesswoman (The Bird Group), a volunteer, philanthropist, a former member of various boards and committees, and currently the human resources director of her business involving the management of more than 500 staff.

On top of this, Marie has had personal experience in building community links with aged care.

In 1985, Marie set up an adult learning program in Port and South Melbourne that included close contact with the SouthPort Aged Care Community Nursing Home.

“The nursing home had an open door policy towards the community, resulting in some amazing opportunities for its residents,” Marie told me.

Through her work as an Outreach Community Education Officer with Prahran TAFE, Marie introduced a program that allowed the nursing home residents – along with people, who for whatever reason, were housebound – to re-engage in learning.

“The strength of this program, which went on for many years after I left my job, came from the local community’s involvement…which included the SouthPort Aged Care Nursing Home,” Marie says.

“This experience has stayed with me for more than 30 years, so to think Lyndoch Living – who until recent times nurtured this model of operation – has now shut itself off from its community just saddens me no end, hence my desire to see Lyndoch remain as a community based facility.”

In a normal world, Lyndoch would welcome Marie – with all of her skills and all of her business nous – as a member.

But no, Lyndoch doesn’t do normal.

Her application, like all the others, was metaphorically dumped straight into the bin.

The board made this decision.

So why would Lyndoch chair Susan Cassidy, hairdresser and owner of Unisexcuts, reject Marie Bird?

Why did deputy chair Kerry Nelson, the former (now retired) CEO of MPower, think Marie was a bad choice?

And treasurer Kane Grant, who works for Sinclair & Wilson? What was his reasoning?

And retired Deakin University academic Prof Rob Wallis?

And former nurse educator Lorraine Milenik? What were her concerns?

And Ron Page, an operations manager with the Australian Dairy Farmers Corp?

And last, but not least, why would Andrew Paton, the Director of City Growth at Warrnambool City Council, reject the application of one of Warrnambool’s leading businesswomen?

There are no explanations; the board can offer only silence.

The Lyndoch AGM will be held on 26 October and nominations to become a board member close two weeks prior.

There are two vacancies on the board and – personally – I would love to see Marie nominate for one of them, but she can’t, because she is not a member, which is a pre-requisite.

In reality, nobody can nominate for the board, other than those ‘tapped on the shoulder’ by the existing board members.

For a community owned aged care home to behave in this way should be unacceptable.

And yet, it seems, those with the real power to challenge it, accept it.

I wonder what it will take for the charade to end?

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

And so it comes to this – the Lyndoch Living board has kicked the community to the kerb with a mass rejection of membership applications.

The official letters began arriving in the post today.

Among those rejected was Kate Sloan, (pictured).

Kate has worked in the emergency department of South West Health Care for 20 years, including 13 years as nurse unit manager.

She has been a registered nurse since 1986 and an endorsed nurse practitioner for 14 years.

Kate also has post-graduate qualifications in emergency nursing, health management and forensic nursing.

She has hospital certifications in critical care and midwifery.

Kate wrote all of this on her Lyndoch membership application form, even though there was no box for such detail, to show the board that she might have something to offer as a member.

But Kate was considered not good enough.

She was not considered worthy of becoming a mere member, let alone ever considering becoming a board member.

The decision to reject Kate was made by Chair Sue Cassidy (hairdresser), Kerry Nelson (former CEO Mpower), Andrew Paton (WCC director City Growth), Ron Page (dairy industry), Kane Grant (Sinclair & Wilson accountant), Lorraine Mielnik (retired  nursing lecturer) and retired academic Prof Rob Wallis*.

No reason has to be given, and the board provided none.

Kate is not alone.

From what is unfolding so far, all 115 applications from the community membership drive last month have been rejected.

The Lyndoch board has – so far – not found one single person from the applicants that they consider worthy of joining Lyndoch.

Not one.

In my view, this board no longer represents the community.

From its actions over the past 12 months and particularly now, it has proven it has disconnected completely from the community that created and nurtured Lyndoch Living for more than 60 years and which still owns it.

That is disgraceful.

Instead of standing up and speaking up, the board is a part of Lyndoch’s determination to avoid community scrutiny.

It is an accomplice – not an ally – as it watches the community lose control of a community owned asset.

Again, in my view, this is disgraceful.

The community is no longer needed or wanted on a rocket ship that has its nose turned toward the ground and is losing senior nursing staff at a time when it needs them most.

Perhaps, as some have been speculating, it’s all a path to Lyndoch being privatised.

I used to think that was outlandish and would never happen. Now, I’m not so sure.

Because, until now, I believed that the community would never LET it happen.

I have come to realise the community has no – official – power to stop it.

The board has complete control over who it lets in, and who it keeps out, and you are being kept out.

And so come the next Annual General Meeting at Lyndoch on 26 October, there will be no invitation for you to join in.

I doubt you will even be told the date, which is why I am publishing it here.

There will be no questions from anyone outside of Lyndoch itself.

Anyone who hopes to nominate for the board, can’t, because you have to be a member first.

The AGM will be an entirely closed shop and, if you are lucky, you might get to watch it on Youtube a week later.

Despite the odds, I am not giving up on Lyndoch without a fight.

Because Lyndoch doesn’t belong to Sue, Andrew Prof Rob, Kane or Kerry. It doesn’t belong to the Lyndoch CEO or executive, and it sure as #$@$ doesn’t – yet – belong to BUPA.

It belongs to Warrnambool.

As a journalist, I can write about this as The Terrier.

But as a member of the community who has a strong connection to Lyndoch, like so many of us do, I will be once again writing to MPs Roma Britnell, Dan Tehan and  Minister Luke Donnellan and asking for their intervention.

The community has done all it can to fight for our aged care home: we need help.

In the meantime, if you have had your application rejected and are willing to be mentioned here, please get in touch.

* The chair and board was contacted earlier today for comment. It had not responded by deadline.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Something nasty is brewing at Lyndoch Living, with senior care staff being lined up as scapegoats for its recent failings in aged care standards.

My understanding is that one of those is the Director of Nursing, who has been expected to absorb an almost indescribable amount of pressure. 

Lyndoch has already gone through one Director of Nursing in the past six years. 

If the current DON does not survive, then it will be two. Do you see something wrong here? I do.

At least one nurse unit manager has already resigned.

That individual was given an impossible task, managed to some how pull it off, but has been chucked over the cliff anyway.

Another two senior individuals who have been pulled into the gunsights have taken sick leave.

This is not where the blame must fall.

Staff have been crying out for more support, more resources, and more trained staff to help meet the needs of 240 residents.

These resources have not arrived.

The care staff at Lyndoch have been working under-resourced for too long and THIS is why it has failed the national standards.

The chickens are coming home to roost.

As I have written about so many times before, those working on the floor have been struggling to cover shifts.

New nursing staff and personal care workers have often found themselves completely overwhelmed.

Some newcomers have been thrown into situations where they are caring for an entire ward, on their own, overnight.

Similarly, just one single Registered Nurse is often in charge of the whole place overnight.

Add to this the unreliability of the nurse communication system and the failings of the resident call bell system and you have a pressure cooker full of stress, anxiety and downright fear.

This is what is happening at Lyndoch Living.

Residents cannot possibly receive the best of care in these conditions and they are conditions that the staff have been struggling under for years.

And the brewing storm is not confined to the nursing and care staff. 

My sources tell me that other areas, including the catering and kitchen staff, are also now under the hammer with cuts.

At the same time, Lyndoch is spending millions – millions – on a medical clinic that nobody asked for, and nobody wants.

As a journalist, I am not supposed to “take sides”, but I refuse to stand on the false fence of impartiality when I see wrong-doing and people about to be hurt.

So what do we do? 

Do we all just stand back and watch this unfold and leave these hard-working staff to take the rap? 

No. No, we don’t. 

What we do is once again call upon the board to stand up, to step in, and to speak up for these staff members who are a part of our community: they are us.

Silence and sitting back is no longer an option Ms Cassidy, Ms Nelson, Prof Wallis, Mr Grant, Ms Mielnik, Mr Paton and Mr Page.

Don’t look away.

The Terrier – Carol Altmann

Just when the whole saga of Lyndoch Living buying the Warrnambool Medical Clinic practice could not get any weirder, it has.

Lyndoch paid $1.3 million in 2019 for the practice, owned by well-respected GP Dr Phil Hall – but it did not buy the building.

The Liebig St building was sold on 29 July for upwards of $1.4m to an anonymous “local investor” who I can tonight reveal is none other than Dr Phil Hall.

(Land Title documents show Dr Hall was already a co-owner of the building, and bought out his partners.)

This means Dr Hall not only works for Lyndoch under contract, but he will be its landlord ($120k a year + GST) until the lease expires next July.

But that’s not the bomb.

The bomb is that the “local investor” (aka Dr Hall) reportedly wants to see the Liebig St building leased as a medical clinic after Lyndoch leaves.

“Their intent is that it remain a medical clinic beyond the current tenant’s stay,” real estate agent Danny Harris told the local paper at the time of the sale.

A medical clinic!

It’s this prospect that exposes a gaping hole in Lyndoch paying $1.3 million to buy the medical practice in the first place.

What did it actually buy?

It bought “goodwill”, which means doctors on contract and the patients who follow them.

But it appears the deal failed to include a crucial clause that the former owner of that practice could not lease a building to a competitor.

Oops.

This failure exposes the fragility of Lyndoch’s decision to wade into medical practice.

As we know, Lyndoch is spending $22 million on a brand new, three-storey, 6761 sq/m complex on Hopkins Rd that it hopes to fill with 20 GPs and other health workers.

Those 20 GPs are the backbone of the whole clinic plan.

They will each pay a substantial fee – around 35 per cent of their annual earnings – in return for a space in the clinic and support services.

But there are no guarantees the GPs will come, or will stay, because GPs are contractors: they decide where they will work, and for how long.

If a GP working for Lyndoch/Warrnambool Medical Clinic wants to leave, they simply give 30 days notice.

My sources tell me the contracts signed between the GPs and Lyndoch expire next April.

This means all bets are off until new contracts are negotiated.

As of next April, Lyndoch could – in a worst case scenario – find itself with less doctors, not more.

Lyndoch was already in a vulnerable position, but that position will become a razor edge if Dr Hall follows through on his reported plan and offers his prime slice of real estate to a new medical clinic.

Who will take up the offer, and how many GPs from Lyndoch/WMC and elsewhere (will Dr Hall be among them?) will join its ranks?

I asked Dr Hall for a comment for this piece, but he declined.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Up it goes.

The pre-cast concrete walls of Lyndoch Living’s $22m medical clinic are being hauled into place this week, giving the first real sense of the sheer scale of the project.

It’s far from sculptural in design (give me Tomlinson Wing any day), but it sure is big.

In fact the total footprint of the building, plus the carpark, is 3210 sq/m.

To put that into perspective, an Olympic-sized swimming pool is 1250 sq/m.

The three-storey building is intended to house up to 20 GPs, two dentist chairs, a pharmacy, pathology, radiology, cafe, education centre, wellness centre, and an acute care area, but don’t start calling it a mini hospital.

It’s a primary health care centre, being built by an aged care home.

We are still not entirely sure whose idea it was to build such an enormous and expensive project, but it has had the full support of the Lyndoch board.

We are also still not sure, exactly, how it will benefit the elderly residents of Lyndoch, or whether it is financially sound.

Lyndoch’s new Chief Operating Officer Elizabeth Green told the local paper in June that there was absolutely nothing to worry about and the project was viable.

“It’s as simple as that,” she told The Standard*.

“This has been planned for a number of years using a number of specialists.

“We have looked at every option, every worst-case scenario, every best case scenario to make sure that whatever we do will work, and it will,” Ms Green is quoted as saying.

Okie dokie, but where are the figures to back up the “it will”?

As we know, former Chief Financial Officer Allan Conway, who finished his contract in March, holds a completely different view.

Mr Conway expressed his grave concerns in writing to his boss, the Lyndoch CEO, in the final days of his contract and said he could not support the clinic “in its current form”.

In other words, Mr Conway believes the clinic is far too big, and will leave Lyndoch exposed if it can’t fill it.

Both Ms Green and Mr Conway can’t be right.

Perhaps one was privy to information that the other was not, but why do we have two chief financial officers with two very different opinions?

(A good question for the October AGM).

Either way, the construction of the pre-fab clinic is going gangbusters in order to meet Lyndoch’s deadline of April next year.

In the meantime, the deadline for a decision on whether Lyndoch will be accredited for another three years has been delayed until February because of Covid19.

A decision was due this month, just five months after the national aged care watchdog found a string of serious failings within the nursing home.

Have these failings been turned around? How did they happen in the first place?

(Another good question for the October AGM).

In another update, I am also waiting to hear from the Warrnambool City Council on whether the corporate sign installed on the side of Lyndoch illegally last November has been given a permit.

Why is it taking so long and, given the sign was installed illegally, what is it still doing there? (Yet another good question for the AGM).

Lastly, I have learned from the WCC staff that the road gouged illegally through Scoborio Reserve to access the medical centre construction site is being reinstated, but there will be no fine.

No fine….

Til next time,

Terrier.

* I have to quote The Standard, as Lyndoch has never responded to The Terrier’s questions.