Carol Altmann – The Terrier

What a difference a year makes.

This time a year ago, the Warrnambool City Council was in the absolute doldrums, with community satisfaction at an all-time low.

The annual satisfaction survey clearly showed Warrnambool was fed up with what had been years of suffering under a deeply divided council and a toxic internal culture – the good ol’ mate’s club – that had been allowed to flourish.

It’s two years, almost to to the day, since I wrote my first piece on the council credit card abuse.

Last year’s shocking survey result was not a consequence of just one bad year, but years of wobbling off course.

In seven of the past 10 years, for example, the council struggled to score any better than 50/100 for “overall direction”.

In 2015, it fell to just 38/100 on that score.

Last year, it bottomed out at 32/100.

As was said at the time of CEO Peter Schneider’s arrival in 2019, he inherited a shit show.

But this week, just days before Mr Schneider resumes his role after being removed illegally on 13 July, the council has bounced back big time.

The latest survey shows it has improved on every single measure.

The biggest leap was in “overall direction” which skyrocketed from 32 to 59 points.

[At this point, I have to dip my hat to the long-suffering WCC customer service team who, despite everything that has been thrown at them, have consistently scored really well in these surveys.

Being on the front line at the WCC cannot be easy.]

Enormous change has swept through the WCC these past 12 months, including the election of a brand new council in October and a change of several senior officers, right up to this week’s resignation of former Acting CEO Vikki King.

The latest Acting CEO Gary Gaffney also made an instant impact, despite only being in the place for a few weeks.

Not only was Mr Gaffney direct and decisive, he made a point of getting to know the people who worked for him – the staff – and the people he worked for, the citizens of Warrnambool.

The challenge for Mr Schneider is to maintain this momentum.

There can be no going back now.

The people have made it clear what they want and expect and the WCC is clearly tracking in the right direction.

Mr Schneider now has 12 months, before his contract will be up for renewal, to show his strengths and the next community survey results – also due in 12 months – will be a true test of his success.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Today’s emphatic victory in the Supreme Court by Warrnambool City Council CEO Peter Schneider did more than give him his job back – it has exposed the poisonous culture that tries to silence our city.

This victory exposes a rotten culture of power and entitlement that was allowed to take root and fester in the council for almost two decades.

Mr Schneider, wide-eyed and pink-cheeked off the plane from WA, walked into a culture that thrived on the cruel concept of  “insiders” and “outsiders” and the snivelling, sycophantic silence of those who quickly learned how the game was played, and who chose not to speak up, but to join in.

By joining in, they thought they might have a tiny slice of power too.

How did that work out?

Mr Schneider walked into a joint that had not had seen a staff review in 12 years.

The WCC had become a place of power plays, backroom deals, favours, payback, revenge, circles of influence, pet projects and political aspirations.

In this culture, one councillor who was on council for 16 years, Michael Neoh, was elected Mayor five times.

Peter Hulin, who was on council for a decade, was not allowed to be Mayor, even once.

Insiders and outsiders.

Mr Schneider was an “insider” for about 23 minutes – having been chosen for the job and relocating his family from across the other side of Australia – only to find he wasn’t an insider at all.

He didn’t fit the plan.

When those who thought they held all the power decided he had to go, they gathered, they plotted, and they ripped his voice out.

As Justice Michael McDonald’s judgment said in no uncertain terms today, Mr Schneider was denied the basic right to defend himself.

He was silenced.

Three other members of council, including the Mayor and a former Mayor, tried to ask questions.

The four councillors who believed they had all the power, stayed mute.

Is there any more brutal example of those who are allowed to speak and those who are not?

We have seen this silencing time and again in Warrnambool: where the cliques have gathered to protect their own and the powerless were ignored.

We see it in the ribbons fluttering on the Loud Fence outside St Joseph’s church in Lava St.

We saw it during the March4Justice rally on 15 March when sexual abuse survivors spoke for the first time.

We saw it in the battle to save Levy’s Beach from the might of the racing industry, where the words of the indigenous elders were lost in the tailwind of Darren Weir’s blazing comet.

We are seeing the same silencing take root in Lyndoch Living right now, in real time, where becoming a member or board member is no longer an opportunity open to everyone, but to a select few.

As a result, we have a situation where more than 1000 people have now signed a petition asking Lyndoch simple questions that it refuses to answer.

Insiders and outsiders: that’s how Warrnambool used to roll.

Mr Schneider’s victory today should send a message to all those who believe the voiceless will stay silent that those days are over.

The days of stepping on heads for personal power – those days are done.

But the cultural clean-out at the council is still not over.

There is an ongoing Local Government Inspectorate investigation that we all hope will provide answers to exactly what happened in the lead up to Mr Schneider’s illegal sacking and afterward.

This includes the “free” legal advice provided to then Cr Neoh, and the appointment of Vikki King as Acting CEO who, before the ink was dry on that deal, was also reappointed for another five years as manager of Community Services.

None of Ms King’s managerial colleagues signed off on that deal, so it was passed to a subordinate – a casual.

I have always believed that the truth rises and it will, and when it does, it comes with a roar.

Find the full judgment here:

Schneider v Warrnambool City Council [2021] VSC 337

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Lyndoch Living’s failure to care for the elderly and frail was kept under wraps for more than a year, during which things didn’t improve –  but got worse.

That little bombshell was wrapped up in MP Dan Tehan’s media statement issued in response to The Terrier exclusive on Tuesday night.

Mr Tehan said the nation’s top aged care watchdog visited Lyndoch in response to a complaint way back in February LAST year.

As a result, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission slapped Lyndoch with a non-compliance order for Personal and Clinical Care (aka, the very reason an aged care home exists).

Never fear, Lyndoch assured the commission at the time, they had a plan!

Fast forward 12 months to January 2021 and the commission re-visited Lyndoch to find the situation was not better, but far worse.

How is that allowed to happen?

As revealed exclusively here on Tuesday night, Lyndoch failed not one, but three out of four standards, including using chemical restraint without consent, and failing to appropriately monitor residents after serious falls.

And when it came to staffing, the commission could not have been more blunt: “(Lyndoch had) not ensured the delivery of safe care and services”.

If Lyndoch can’t get this right, what is it there for? To sponsor golf and horse racing?

Lyndoch’s three-year accreditation comes around again in August.

Lyndoch told the paper (it doesn’t respond to The Terrier) that it has an “action plan”, none of which has been detailed or publicly costed.

There is no mention of it on its website.

Once again, we are kept in the dark by a board and Lyndoch executive who are failing to deliver Lyndoch’s core business.

If The Terrier had not been tipped off about this latest report, nobody would know a thing about any of this.

“This” is the neglect that follows as a natural consequence of our nursing home not having enough staff, not having enough qualified staff, getting rid of experienced staff, and staff quitting because they are physically and emotionally exhausted.

At least 120 people have left Lyndoch in recent years, from very experienced and senior operators, down to those who only lasted a year or two.

These are the ever-growing band of alumni dismissed by Lyndoch as “disgruntled workers”, when in fact they are soldiers returned from the battlefield with warnings of what lies over the horizon.

“This” is a consequence of changing priorities where Lyndoch will overload itself with executives, but can’t fix the nurse call-bell system that is still unreliable.

“This” is a culture that will happily see Lyndoch go into massive debt for a new $24 million medical clinic based on an invisible business plan, rather than hiring more hands and hearts on the ground.

This is not the fault of the nursing and care staff: the moral collapse starts with the executive and board who set Lyndoch’s vision and priorities.

Don’t just take my word for it.

Take it from former Lyndoch Director of Nursing Penny Iddon who wrote this on the Terrier Facebook page after the breaking story:

“Poor standards of care are a direct result of poor and inadequate management oversight.

“The Board, the CEO and the senior nursing staff must take responsibility for this appalling result. The Board can no longer bury their heads in the sand and the CEO can’t keep passing the buck.

“After all, what the Auditors reported on regarding poor and outdated care practices has been allowed to continue under their watch which indicates a clear breakdown of systems, protocols and values.”

We have now seen in stark detail this week how Lyndoch is breaking down.

It has broken down in its duty of care.

And there are fears if the medical clinic goes ahead at the scale which is planned, it will break down financially.

How ironic, then, to see the Lyndoch CEO listed among the guest speakers jetting off to at an aged care forum next month in Sydney.

The topic?

Attracting and retaining new talent to revitalise your workforce.

Exclusive

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

A string of failings at Lyndoch Living has been exposed in a damning report by the national aged care watchdog.

A report released by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission in March – but which I was alerted to only today – lays out a shocking series of inadequacies recorded after a two-day visit by the commission to Lyndoch in January.

The commission is the peak federal body for assessing and accrediting aged care homes and for handling complaints.

Its assessment team found Lyndoch was non-compliant in three out of four key measures for resident care and staffing.

A separate report released at the same time shows the Lyndoch Hostel section passed on all measures, but an 11-page report into other, unidentified, sections of Lyndoch reveals a story of wounds, falls, pain, lack of consent, outdated records and crying out for help.

The report focusses on five specific residents, and it makes for heart-breaking reading.

Here are some of its findings:

Resident one, who was living with severe dementia, experienced “breakthrough” pain levels daily for three weeks without receiving any further pain medication, pain assessment, monitoring or evaluation;

A pain assessment plan set out by a specialist team was not followed;

The specialist’s recommendation that a pain medication patch be increased was not followed;

This same resident also had several wounds which were not adequately overseen by staff;

In regard to one of the wounds, all four management plans failed to record if the wound was getting better or worse, with boxes on wound size either unchanged or left blank;

Another resident was being given antipsychotic drugs “as required” – which is defined as chemical restraint – with no proof of consent:

“The representative of the [resident] told the Assessment Team that they had not provided consent and were unaware of any potential side effects of the use of the medication,” the report says.

A third resident had a fall and was hospitalised overnight with a significant laceration but, upon returning to Lyndoch the next day, was not reviewed for pain or possible brain injury:

“The Assessment Team found that staff did not undertake a timely review of the consumer’s pain on return from hospital and did not undertake neurological observations.”

This same resident later developed shoulder pain, but an order for stronger pain relief was not processed until two days later, with a GP review three days later.

A fourth resident, who lives with dementia, had an unwitnessed fall, but was not assessed for pain or a possible head injury.

Two days later, the same resident had two more falls which “qualifies” for a CT scan, that occurred.

The report says Lyndoch refuted the assessment team’s statements about this incident and also questioned the accuracy of its findings.

The team, however, stood by its report.

It says “the key points were timeliness of pain review following a fall and whether staff undertook neurological observations. Particularly …. for unwitnessed falls where the consumer could have hit their head…”

A review of records of a fifth resident, who was on psychotropic medication, found the medication records were out of date.

As a result of these incidents, Lyndoch was found to be non-compliant in standards for Personal Care and Clinical Care.

It was also found to be non-compliant in Human Resources and had “not ensured the delivery of safe care and services”.

The assessment team said it witnessed staff rushing tasks and staff walking past a resident who was calling out for help without stopping to offer support or assistance.

A review of the roster across a two-week period found some shifts were unfilled.

It also found failings in infection prevention and control, including:

poor use of personal protective equipment by some staff;

social distancing not always being adhered to by some staff and;

not taking all reasonable steps to prevent visitors who do not meet entry requirements from entering the facility.

Staff shortages and a lack of suitably qualified staff also came under fire:

“the skills of the current mix of staff delivering the care are inadequate and are not meeting the current needs of (residents).”

So there it is in black and white: Lyndoch is failing in its core business of caring for our elderly and frail.

It is failing some of the most vulnerable people in our community and yet there are still those within Lyndoch who will deny, deflect and head to the May Races.

This is not the fault of the exhausted Lyndoch staff.

The buck does not stop with them: it stops with those who decide the priorities of Lyndoch.

Right now, the number one priority for Lyndoch is building a $24 million, 3000sq/m medical clinic with no clear benefit to the residents.

This is how disgracefully lop-sided things have become and how far Lyndoch has drifted from its core purpose.

And so we have reports of wounds, falls, pain, missing records, soreness, sadness and crying out for help.

This is not happening in a private aged care home deep in the outskirts of Melbourne: it is happening in Warrnambool, in a place owned by us, the community.

Why has Lyndoch not told us about this report, apologised for its failings and pledged to do better?

Do we simply shrug our shoulders and say “that’s how it is in aged care” and turn away?

I can’t turn away and I know you can’t too.

We have to be the voice of the voiceless and refuse to accept silence as a solution.

[The commission has set down seven areas in which Lyndoch must improve to avoid any risk to its accreditation. You can read those here. It should be noted the commission says Lyndoch has challenged or refuted many of its findings. You can download the full report here.]