Carol Altmann – The Terrier

On Friday, I deposited all the $$$ we raised to mount a legal challenge against the Lyndoch Living board into a trust account. Now, we wait.

And while we wait for the barrister’s opinion, let’s remember why this legal challenge is even necessary.

It’s necessary because, after seven decades of needing the community to survive, the seven remaining members of the Lyndoch board have decided to disconnect Lyndoch from the community, without consultation or explanation.

These seven people have become gatekeepers and, in my view, enablers.

They are not the only ones. There is a band of hand-selected enablers across Lyndoch now: carefully chosen for their willingness to oblige without question in return for…what? A salary? A promised career path? A certificate of appreciation?

Those who wouldn’t oblige, or who spoke up, or challenged, or simply decided they had had enough, are either going ….or gone. There was actually a hit list of those Lyndoch wanted out. They are all gone.

And as I write this tonight, yet another clinical leader has left.

And as I write this, I come to the end of another week where the distressing messages just keep coming in about staff shortages, care workers covering for nurses, nurses being run ragged, staff working double-shifts, being exhausted, and almost spent.

I would normally show you a screenshot of the staff shortages, but now Lyndoch is so paranoid about who is “leaking to The Terrier” (aka, letting the truth out) that staff fear text messages from Lyndoch will contain clues to try and trace them.

Staff also know – even if they no longer work at Lyndoch – that Lyndoch is watching closely to see if they comment or like a Terrier post.

The intimidation doesn’t end, it seems, even if you no longer work there.

So I will instead tell you that yesterday, 26 February, Lyndoch sent out a text saying it was, once again, “desperately in need of staff” in the dementia (Audrey Prider) and high care (Lake Lodge) wings.

In Audrey Prider, the high-care dementia wing, the shortages included four staff on two shifts, from 7am to 3.30pm and from 1.30pm til 10pm.

Audrey Prider has 45 beds and, during the day, should typically have nine staff: 1 Registered Nurse, 6 enrolled nurses and 2 care workers.

If you remove four staff from that equation, resident care suffers. Many, I am told, have to spend the day in bed as there is just not enough staff to go around.

And yet amid all of this desperation and exhaustion, we hear nothing from Lyndoch and nothing from the board.

So this, this is just one of the reasons that we are fighting back for our voice to be heard at the table. Not as board members, but as general members – from the community – who are prepared to stand up for our elderly and those who care for them.

I know for a fact the staff are reading these posts. We are here for you. We are fighting for you. And we are not giving up. #pressingon

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

This time last week, this page pushed a boat from the shore in the hope of raising $5000 to fund a court challenge against the Lyndoch Living board.

Not only did we meet that goal within two hours – we have more than doubled it.

Online and offline donations now sit at $10,570 (the fundraiser closes at midnight tonight).

Thankyou.

Thankyou to every single person who donated whatever they could afford to help.

Some people donated five or ten dollars, some donated two hundred or five hundred, but every person donated with the same sense of purpose: to bring the community back to the heart of Lyndoch.

Every cent of this Lyndoch fighting fund will go toward that goal.

The funds will shortly be transferred to a trust account with a legal firm and will be used to secure a barrister who is the best in this field of law.

The barrister will provide an expert legal opinion on whether the current Lyndoch board – collectively and individually – have failed in their duty to uphold the original spirit and purpose of Lyndoch aged care, which was started by the community more than 60 years ago.

This failure includes the rejection of all general membership applications these past two years.

It’s a challenge that, we believe, will result in a hearing in either the County or Supreme Court, and this is the first step.

We have been fighting this battle for accountability and transparency for more than two years, in fact it is almost two years to the day since a group of concerned people met with local federal MP Dan Tehan to express their serious concerns about Lyndoch.

Those concerns, in the past 12 months, have only escalated.

But now the community has spoken.

It is no longer waiting for the cavalry to arrive.

It IS the cavalry.

I will keep you informed every step of the way as this challenge unfolds but for tonight, I want to say thankyou.

Thankyou to every person who has had the courage to stand up for Lyndoch and to not simply sit back, stay silent, and watch.

And thankyou to everyone who has helped this terrier to keep fighting.

On we go.

[The fighting fund will remain open until midnight. You can find it here. If you would prefer direct deposit, please email me at TerrierCarol@protonmail.com]

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Ahoy there from the good ship Terrier and a Happy New Year + 17 days!

What lies ahead for The Terrier in 2021? New voices, a new project and tackling unfinished business.

I spent the summer break recovering from last year, which was exhausting and exacting and yet full of so much change, and also thinking a lot about this year.

After much thinking and sleeping and walking and talking and more thinking, I am ready for a year of diving deep into unfinished business and setting sail into new waters.

There are a couple of important stories that remain unfinished for me.

These stories take time, often a very long time, and I never know for sure where they might end, but I always know when I have reached the end, and I am not there yet.

There is also unfinished council business from last year, including the sacking of former Warrnambool City Council chief Peter Schneider, which goes before the Supreme Court on 1 February to determine if he was denied natural justice and should be reinstated.

Running alongside this is the Local Government Inspectorate investigation into the acting WCC CEO Vicki King being re-hired – by delegation – for another five years to her old job.

The outcome of both cases has the potential to change the face of the new council, and will tie off – one way or the other – the shadow that has lingered over 25 Liebig St since July last year when Mr Schneider was given the boot.

I plan to share other voices, including that of Jim Burke, who many of you will remember ran in the WCC election. Jim is a long-time council watcher and a guy with an overflowing bookshelf and a brain to match.

Jim will continue to write on his own Facebook page about council issues and analyse what it all means for Warrnambool with the intelligence and insight that comes from watching every  council meeting, and poring over the hundreds of pages of documents that lie behind every worthwhile story.

I am rapt that Jim has agreed to let me share his work as the new council is given a chance to settle and find its feet.

There are other writers I also hope to bring into the fold to help me tackle other unfinished business, such as the $40 million Wannon Water treatment plant upgrade near Thunder Point which has been on pause since the EPA responded to public concerns and demanded a raft of extra information.

I hope in 2021 that The Terrier can be a platform for many voices, not just my own, as we continue to dig into the issues and ask the hard questions and keep pressing for answers.

I also have a new project, which is actually a project I have been quietly working on for years, but this year it will finally come to the surface – the restoration of Alf Altmann’s kayak and my revisiting his journey for a book that I have been wanting to write for at least a decade.

Alf was my uncle who, in 1970, attempted to be the first person to row solo from Tasmania to Victoria in a kayak he built by hand here in Warrnambool. He nearly made it, drowning just 1.5 miles offshore from the Gippsland Lakes.

I now have his kayak and this year it will be restored by boatbuilder Garry Stewart in Port Fairy and, thanks to Dean Montgomery, will eventually be displayed in the Warrnambool Motor Museum at the former Fletcher Jones factory.

So this year I will also be spending some time in Tasmania, building and writing a story that is worth telling.

My younger brother and artist, Graeme Altmann, has donated one of his incredible “steam punk junk ships” (pictured above) to help me raise funds for the restoration which I will be documenting here. You will have a chance to own this gorgeous boat and be a part of this story.

Welcome to Terrier 2021.

It is so great to have you on board.