Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Tonight I am digging into the second chapter of where Lyndoch Living CEO Doreen Power worked before being chosen in late 2014 to lead our much-loved aged care home.

To me, Ms Power’s back story is important in the context of what is happening at Lyndoch now:

an extraordinary number of staff that have left since 2015, including a string of senior managers and managers,

allegations of a toxic work environment and;

evidence of staff shortages and equipment shortages for our aged and frail.

 

As I wrote on Monday, Ms Power was in charge of Seymour hospital for five years from 2007 to 2012, before resigning in the face of a virtual uprising within the town over allegations of a toxic workplace, high staff turnover and extremely low staff morale.

Seymour is almost a mirror image of the concerns now leaking out of Lyndoch.

The back story, however, doesn’t end there.

After Seymour, Ms Power became CEO of Plenty Valley Community Health, in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, but resigned and was replaced by an interim CEO after only 18 months.

Why?

After Plenty Valley, Ms Power was appointed Director of Nursing and Manager of the Clinical Team at the Tweddle Child and Family Health Service – her last position before coming to Warrnambool – but, again, she resigned after a few months.

Why?

I have dug deep into these questions and spoken to many people about this period in Ms Power’s career, and a troubling pattern has emerged.

That pattern centres around a particular management style which results in the same allegations: a toxic workplace, low staff morale, high staff turnover and, in the aftermath, the need for a major overhaul and refocus on the organisation’s people and core purpose.

For various reasons I am, unfortunately, unable to quote any sources directly for this piece, but I can tell you that up to 60 staff left Plenty Valley Community Health during 2012-2013.

I can also tell you that the issues left behind for the health centre to deal with were complex and draining.

Former Plenty Valley health board director Marcia O’Neill sums it up in her opening line from the 2013-14 annual report, written six months after Ms Power’s resignation:

“The past year was one of the most challenging in the history of Plenty Valley Community Health.

“Thanks to the efforts of the Board, our stakeholders and key executive staff during this critical time, the prospects for the future are now very promising,” she writes.

 

Ms O’Neill goes on to say that the appointment of a new CEO (Phillip Bain) saw a sound foundation of executive management and loyal staff and a move back to “business as usual”.

Phillip Bain also gave a blunt assessment in the 2014-15 annual report of what Plenty Valley health looked like when he took charge:

“The Plenty Valley that I joined in early August was a much less confident organisation than the one we see today.

“We had a backlog of productivity, infrastructure and policy issues to address.

“We also had very low levels of staff morale arising from changes in senior management, and had missed out on many opportunities for growth or building partnerships in the years prior.”

 

One source told me that when Mr Bain took over, it was like Plenty was “being liberated”.

Mr Bain goes on to list 25 main areas of change under his watch, including a new strategic plan, a review of financial reporting, and a “dramatic improvement” in staff morale, absenteeism and staff retention.

Did the Lyndoch board, as it was in 2014 when Ms Power was appointed, know about any of this?

If it did, what impact, if any, did it have on the board’s choice of Ms Power as the best person to guide Lyndoch into the future?

Apparently Ms Power was chosen from 20 applicants, but I am not sure who was on the selection panel. (I emailed chair Kerry Nelson about all this today, but she is on leave until 19 December.)

Lyndoch Living is a very different place under Ms Power’s reign and there is no doubt some changes to Lyndoch were necessary, but what has also happened is a growing culture of silence, with staff too scared to speak up and the public not encouraged to ask questions.

On the ground, the Lyndoch staff have been threatened with disciplinary action if they make any comments on social media that are considered unacceptable by management, and especially if they comment on The Terrier.

I have heard a list of names has been taken, which explains the lack of comments from Lyndoch staff on anything I write (don’t worry, I see you).

The lack of information at the last Lyndoch AGM also showed the disregard for wider community input into Lyndoch’s direction.

I am starting to wonder if Lyndoch, which was started by the community, supported by the community and is still accountable to the community, is turning into Leningrad.

How this has happened, and what we can do about it, is where this story goes next.

More soon.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

If we need a canary in the coal mine about what is unfolding at Lyndoch Living, it’s what happened at the Seymour hospital earlier this decade.

Seymour hospital was plagued with problems in the early 2000s, with a string of doctors resigning, a loss of birthing services, a dysfunctional board, and four official inquiries into the mess in less than two years.

Into this crisis came Doreen Power, who was appointed CEO of Seymour Health in 2007 and left in 2012, during which time the hospital saw many changes and the small town of 7000 people virtually imploded.

Ms Power, who is now CEO of Lyndoch Living, was hired by the Seymour hospital to get things done and she did: birthing services were resumed, the doctors came back to work, and the hard-working staff at the hospital continued to provide the best services that they could.

But behind the scenes of all this “success” was a human train wreck of broken, dis-spirited people, many of whom were allegedly treated so appallingly that they are only just starting to recover and some say they never will.

I have spoken to many people from Seymour about this period and the same stories are repeated over and over:

staff being bullied, losing their jobs for no reason, being “marched off the premises” without warning, hounded over minor issues, feeling disempowered, afraid, depressed and having “nowhere to turn” because the board either wouldn’t listen, or wasn’t told.

This sounds frightening familiar to what is now allegedly unfolding at Lyndoch Living.

“People became severely depressed and traumatised and felt there was nobody who could help them,” said one Seymour woman who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“There was a sense the board had been hand-picked and they wouldn’t help. You were told if you approached the board, you would be dismissed…if you wanted to keep your job, you had to shut up.”

 

In desperation, some staff organised a Seymour version of an underground resistance by wearing green ribbons to work as a sign that they were a “safe” person to approach if you were being bullied.

Can you imagine?

The terrible reality for these Seymour staff is nobody from the hospital board stepped up, staff were too scared to speak up, and the damage rolled on until the wider community was alerted to what was happening.

An anonymous letter drop was circulated throughout Seymour in early 2012 and local state MP Cindy McLeish, now deputy Opposition leader, was bombarded by people pleading for her to intervene.

Ms Power resigned as CEO in May 2012, just two months before Ms McLeish organised a public meeting that was held in the local footy clubrooms before a capacity crowd of more than 300 people. Nobody from the hospital executive showed up.

Neither Ms Power or the executive, however, escaped the wrath of the crowd.

“The meeting saw pent-up community frustration released about perceived high staff turnover at the hospital, allegations of bullying, a “toxic” workplace, former chief executive Doreen Power and the change from a community hospital to a ‘bean counter mentality’ among other things,” the Seymour Telegraph reported.

Seymour GP Dr Elliot Jarman was among the passionate speakers in the audience. He was quoted by the paper as saying:

“Over 25 years Seymour Hospital has evolved to provide first-class services. I’m proud of that. What I am not proud of is staff absolutely in tears, intimidated…what’s happening is (wrong).

“I’ve been to the courts, I’ve been to Worksafe…(they’re) unable to help. I’ve been seeing patients and my fellow colleagues in tears. It’s just not right. Our services are being damaged by the current management style.”

Another Seymour GP, Dr Rob Peterson, told the meeting that three core issues needed to be addressed immediately: improved communications from the board to staff, allegations of bullying, and low staff morale. Bang, bang, bang.

By the time of the town meeting, it’s understood up to 50 staff had left the hospital, either from being pressured or being fired, and a string of Fair Work claims that followed – I believe up to 14 or 15 –  have only recently been finalised.

“It broke this town and I don’t think it has ever fully recovered,” said one Seymour source.

Seymour ultimately had an intervention, with a ministerial appointment made to the hospital board to report back to then Health Minister David Davis.

By the end of 2012, the hospital chair had resigned and most of the executive team had been cleaned out after their positions became untenable.

As a local blogger, Seymour Dreaming, wrote: “why has the board been conspicuously silent when the community expressed concerns over controversial events for which is was ultimately responsible?”

Why indeed?

And then this, a heart-felt letter to the paper from resident, Janet McKenzie, which says it all:

“The (hospital) board…and past and present executive staff need to be accountable for the shame, hurt, stress and humiliation that has been placed on these staff and their families.

They deserve so much better treatment, as do volunteers who have so generously given their time…

These staff and volunteers must receive an unconditional apology and compensation/reinstatement for the treatment they have received at the hands of (the hospital).

It is not acceptable that is ignored as these are staff and volunteers who have given many years of unblemished, caring and passionate service..

Finally, I, like many other family members of the above staff will be there to give support, assistance and much needed emotional care to those that the (hospital) has abandoned.”

 

The canary is coughing at Lyndoch Living and I hope the board is listening, because this management style hasn’t happened just once before, but twice.

Next: Plenty Valley.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

This Lyndoch Living story has gone to places that I never expected it to go and that includes wading into the work history of CEO Doreen Power which, to be frank, is why I am so troubled by what is unfolding here.

I will write more about Ms Power’s back story in the near future, but for now I just want to lay out the context for my concern and why I am latching on to this story for the long haul.

In the seven years before Ms Power became CEO of Lyndoch in December 2014, she held three senior positions:

First as CEO of Seymour Health for almost five years before resigning in May 2012 in the face of a virtual uprising by the small town of 7000 people.

Then as CEO of Plenty Valley Community Health for less than two years, before an interim CEO was appointed in December 2013.

And, lastly, working briefly as Director of Nursing at Tweddle Child and Family Health Service until that role was taken over by another person in February 2014.

I have spent many hours researching and talking to people about Ms Power’s time at Seymour and Plenty in particular and a disturbing pattern has emerged, one which I believe is being replicated at Lyndoch:

– a culture of bullying and dismissal

– extremely low staff morale

– a compliant board or attempts to create one

– an impact on residential care and services

– a culture of secrecy and a lack of transparency

 

Journalists, I can tell you, don’t have either the time or inclination to go digging into people’s work history unless it is relevant to a story unfolding now.

Ms Power’s back story is absolutely relevant and it is why I am committed to writing all that I know – based on a huge amount of research and dozens of interviews – because you need to know.

We need to know because Seymour Health and Plenty Valley Community Health, in particular, are the red flags.

Both took years to recover.

Thanks to your help, I am going to pick apart what is happening at Lyndoch – all of it – because Lyndoch was set up by the community, to care for some of the most vulnerable in our community. Full stop, end of story.

Over the coming weeks, I am going to write about:

where Lyndoch is heading, its priorities, the breaking down of resident care, its venture into building and running a commercial medical clinic, who is paying for what, who is running what, who is in charge of what, whether Lyndoch is still primarily a charity and public benevolent institution, how the board is handling complaints, the change of the Lyndoch constitution, how the board is chosen, how the public can become members, the lack of transparency around its full financials, its support for gambling via a horse race, other sponsorship deals, potential conflicts of interest, who is involved in the new company Lyndoch HealthCare, and anything else worthy of forensic examination.

I will also be telling you much more about Ms Power’s time at Seymour Health, and Plenty Valley Community Health, and explore how she became employed by Lyndoch.

It’s going to be a long, slow haul, but it is an essential one.

It’s going to be tiring work, but we have done this before, you and I – the terriers and The Terrier – and we know we can make a difference.

We can be a voice for the workers (past and present) and the residents and for the Lyndoch we know and love, and together we can step up to where the majority of the board seemingly refuses to go.

If there is one thing I have learnt from my research around Seymour and Plenty Valley, it is that we need to start now.

Strap yourselves in and on we go.

More soon.

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