Arise! Huge pre-fab clinic starts to emerge from Lyndoch

Workers are dwarfed by the pre-cast slabs for Lyndoch’s new $22m million medical clinic.

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.

 



Is Lyndoch preparing to smother concerns with cement slab?

Lyndoch Living has taken to Facebook to flog off the fencing surrounding the site of the proposed $22m medical clinic.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Lyndoch Living has taken to Facebook today to urgently flog off the fencing around the site of its proposed $22 million medical clinic, strongly suggesting work will start within a week.

The big hint? It needs the whole lot packed up and gone by Monday.

And why wouldn’t they be putting the pedal to the metal?

There is nothing like getting a cement slab down to try and shut down growing community concern around the viability of this project.

More than 600 people have now signed a petition started by the “Keep Lyndoch living” action group asking for the State Government to intervene and pause the project until these concerns are addressed.

This petition asks for nothing more than an independent review, just to make sure that this massive investment by Lyndoch – the largest in its history – is sustainable.

But 600 people is obviously not enough to stop the Lyndoch Living juggernaut.

No, it presses on regardless, rolling right over the top of the community concerns and flattening them like it did the Tomlinson dementia wing with its established gardens, vegetable beds and green lawns.

The residents, you will recall, were shuffled off to the spanking new Swinton Wing, where they could peer through the windows at the destruction of their former home.

Grass and gardens are so yesterday, with that “old” Lyndoch slowly being replaced by cement, rooftop gardens, and a medical clinic that could possibly send Lyndoch broke.

And despite being owned by the community, Lyndoch feels under no obligation to explain anything to the community about its decisions.

Simple questions like where is the money for this medical clinic coming from?

What is the benefit to the elderly residents?

Is there a business plan?

What are the expected returns?

Such concerns are dismissed as a beat-up by “troublemakers” or “disgruntled ex-workers” who must be pushed aside quickly if Lyndoch is to move on with its masterplan.

It doesn’t matter a jot that one of those raising the alarm about this clinic is former Acting Chief Financial Officer Allan Conway who has the rare distinction of actually standing up and speaking out publicly for Lyndoch.

That shows a spine, yet Mr Conway’s concerns have so far fallen on deaf ears.

And because those with the power to intervene are choosing not to act, Lyndoch is acting – fast.

But as the petition shows, hundreds of people are prepared to publicly support Mr Conway and, most importantly, the elderly of Lyndoch, and that gives me heart and hope that this fight is far from over, fence or no fence.

You can find the petition here.



Petition ask State Govt to press pause on $22m Lyndoch clinic

The latest version of the proposed $22m medical clinic at Lyndoch Living. Image: Marchese Partners.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

A short post tonight.

As we know, the Lyndoch Living board has still not answered a series of questions over its plan to pour $22 million of aged care funds into a medical clinic.

This clinic is one of either two things:

an expensive trophy project that could leave Lyndoch in serious financial stress OR;

a certified winner that will directly improve the lives of the elderly and vulnerable residents of Lyndoch.

We still don’t know which.

The “Keep Lyndoch living” * group has tried to get answers from Lyndoch on behalf of the community, but has heard nothing.

It has now started a Change.org petition asking the State Government to intervene and pause the project until an independent review can address all outstanding concerns and questions.

The group will also shortly launch a Go Fund me campaign to seek a legal opinion on the rights of the community in regard to Lyndoch – a sentence which would have been unimaginable just 10 years ago.

As individuals, we have two choices: we can either join the fight for greater scrutiny of this massive project, or shrug our shoulders and leave Lyndoch to it.

No need to guess what this #justablogger plans to do. Over to you.

You can find the Change.org petition here.

*”Keep Lyndoch living” is a grassroots action group formed to become a voice for the community. Its founding members include medical Prof James Dunbar, Helen Bayne (M.Ed. B.Comm) and a former senior investigator for the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Jim Burke.



Inquiry into aged care a chance to break the fear and silence

Lyndoch Living CEO Doreen Power cheering on from the stands during the 2019 May Racing Carnival. Image: Lyndoch Living/ Racing Victoria.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

This week will be a reckoning for aged care across Australia and I can hope it blows the lid right off what is a national disgrace.

We only have to look at our own neck of the woods to see how little official outrage there is to what should be unacceptable.

It’s more than two months since The Terrier revealed an outbreak of scabies within Lyndoch Living, our much-loved, community-owned aged care home in Warrnambool.

When whistleblowers revealed scabies in a Whyalla nursing home last November, A Current Affair and a South Australian MP were on the doorstep demanding answers.

It’s also more than a year since I wrote about staff tearing up sheets and towels to use as facewashers, and more money being spent on consultants and lawyers than on food for residents.

More than a year has passed since I revealed a family member of a resident was sleeping on the floor next to her mother for seven days because her mother had had a series of falls and there was not enough staff to keep an eye on her.

At the same time, Lyndoch senior staff, right up to the CEO, and senior board members, were attending the May Races.

It’s also a year since a leaked copy of a staff survey revealed serious allegations of bullying and intimidation at Lyndoch that went right to the very top.

It’s well over a year since I first wrote about the steady stream of staff who were leaving Lyndoch, sometimes after decades of service, because of alleged bullying, being “targeted”, or given little option to resign and – if they are lucky – given a payout to sweeten the blow. I call it “keep quiet” money.

Is that sort of thing still happening? Yes.Yes, it is.

It’s eight months since we learned two architects from Melbourne were visiting Lyndoch Living despite the “ring of steel” Covid-19 lockdown in that city.

Lyndoch denied they were even from Melbourne.

It’s 18 months since we learned that the community was no longer welcome to become members of Lyndoch: every single membership application from the general community has been rejected, including that of our now Mayor Vicki Jellie.

Board member positions are no longer advertised.

The annual general meeting is no longer advertised.

Has there been an outcry from the board at this lack of inclusion? No.

Regardless, we have still unpicked the fact that Lyndoch has recorded a series of deficits these past five years and will borrow money from residential bonds (as the current laws allow it to do), to fund its $100 million masterplan.

We also recently learned, thanks to two former Lyndoch workers who peeled back the lid, that Lyndoch was gobbling up to 44 per cent in management fees for home care packages.(Again, the laws currently allow these fees.)

And this still doesn’t touch on what I haven’t been able to publish, because Lyndoch is litigious and I have to pick my way through a minefield to report even this much.

Our local political leaders know about most –  if not all – of the above. Some of them have even met personally with those directly affected.

And yet, perhaps despite the best of intentions, nothing has come of it.

That may change after this week.

This week will see the public release of the findings of the Royal Commission into Aged Care and the federal government’s initial responses.

The sad and infuriating story of what people are expected to “put up with” – as aged care residents, aged care staff, the residents families and the wider community – will be laid bare.

It will no doubt emphasise the need for better staffing ratios, better pay, better training and working conditions, better scrutiny of those in positions of responsibility, greater transparency around funding and fees, and why aged care residents should never been seen as “customers”.

But I also hope this inquiry exposes why so many people connected to aged care feel disempowered from speaking up and out about what they know, because they fear the repercussions.

I can tell you that fear and silence around Lyndoch Living is very real, even if not everyone is touched by it.

I know it, several GPs around Warrnambool know it, several lawyers around Warrnambool know it. Our local MPs know it. The families and friends of those directly affected know it.

The release of the Royal Commission findings is our chance as a whole community to speak up for those who can’t do so themselves.

This was the promise the community made to Lyndoch when it was first built more than 60 years ago: first and foremost it would protect and care for the elderly and frail, and those who look after them.

Now is the time to make good on that promise.

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Consultants, lawyers and admin soak up Lyndoch millions

Consultants, lawyers and administration costs continue to soak up millions at Lyndoch Living. Image: Forbes

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Lyndoch Living spent $1.2 million on consultants and lawyers in 2020, and at least another $3 million on its ever-expanding administration.

A deeper dive into the 2020 financial figures reported to the Australian Charities and Not for Profit Commission show Lyndoch has spent at least $1 million a year for the past three years – a total of $3.34 million – on legal fees, consultancies and auditors.

That $3.34 million over three years is more than the food budget for the 200 to 240 residents, but more on that shortly.

Behind the scenes at Lyndoch, a steady stream of consultants has been working on the $100 million masterplan, including – as I understand it – around $99,999 and 99 cents paid to one consultant for the business plan for the medical clinic that will be built on site later this year.

We haven’t seen that business plan, but we can only trust that it’s a good one, because Lyndoch is going into the uncharted waters of borrowing big to finance the estimated $23 million cost.

At the same time, Lyndoch’s administration costs are now more than $3 million a year, compared to $2.5 million in 2015.

The admin budget is hard to follow from year to year, because it keeps bouncing around the balance sheet like a bee in a bottle.

In 2018, it was $3.3m.

In 2019, it suddenly fell to $1.94m after an adjustment or “restatement”.

In 2020, it was back up to $3.07m.

While the figures are subject to the vagaries of various accounting methods, one thing we do know is that the number of admin staff at Lyndoch has gone up.

As has already been reported here, admin staff at Lyndoch shot up from 37 in 2016 to around 60 in 2018, and several other, highly paid souls have joined since.

(Since 2018, Lyndoch no longer publishes a staff breakdown of how many people work in each area.)

In addition to these costs, just under another $1 million has been spent in the past three years on advertising and marketing, including Lyndoch’s sponsorship of the grand annual jumps race at the Warrnambool May Races.

This sponsorship, which was renewed in 2019 and now runs until 2022, was designed to promote its Waterfront Living apartments.

I am yet to hear of anyone buying one of the apartments because they were at the races, but perhaps in between punts they were persuaded.

As it happens, the last of the apartments were sold at heavily discounted prices late last year so Waterfront could finally reach full occupancy.

But enough of the fascinators and corporate suits, what of the budget for residential care?

This brings us back to the kitchen.

I always like to check how much is being spent on food, given this – unlike the races – really is the core business of an aged care home.

In 2019, Lyndoch spent $1.2m on food for around 200 residents, or about $16.50 per resident, per day.

In 2020, this had risen to $1.44m, which looks good on paper, but Lyndoch has also since bought the May Noonan Hostel in Terang, so the number of residents has also increased to around 240.

This means the food budget works out to be the same – around $16.50 per resident, per day.

That is around $6000 in food per resident, per year.

(I suspect the various legal battles funded by Lyndoch against The Terrier have cost the equivalent of that per month.)

Again, I provide this information so the community, which owns Lyndoch, can keep an eye on its direction and priorities behind the marketing and public relations. If you wander over to the Australian Charities and Not for Profit Commission, you can check it all out for yourself.

In the meantime, we keep digging.

More soon.