Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Remember that $1.3 million of public money paid by Lyndoch Living for the  “goodwill” of the Warrnambool Medical Clinic?

Well, the Practice Manager – the chief administrator – has resigned, giving just four weeks’ notice after what I understand is more than a decade in the job.

A big slice of that goodwill is going and is not easily replaced.

This latest resignation also follows two experienced GPs who resigned on the spot last April when Lyndoch laid out its plans as the new owners of the clinic and, I have a hunch, there will be more departures to come.

Nursing and administration staff have also left under circumstances which have been raising questions. (Does this sound familiar to you? If you are long-term readers of The Terrier, it should.)

The alarm bells have been ringing and now the house of Lyndoch is burning and I am not sure how much more the board can just keep explaining it all away.

Smoke? Smoke? That’s not smoke, it’s just a little sea mist rolling up from the mouth of the Hopkins River.

Until this latest bombshell, I had intended to tell you tonight about the official rejections of the latest people who applied to become members of Lyndoch, so I will squeeze this in too.

They include a recipient of the Order of Australia medal, Vicki Jellie, a former south-west MP Adam Kempton (who was once a Lyndoch board member), a former business journalist Steve Hynes (who has applied twice), and a bloke by the name of  Jim Burke, a familiar name on The Terrier Facebook page, who has a tidy little resume which I will repeat here:

“Jim served in the Royal Australian Navy for 24 years in communications and intelligence roles.

On retirement from the Navy, he was employed by Defence Signals Directorate (now Australian Signals Directorate) for 14 years before working for the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security as a Senior Investigation Officer until his retirement in 2009.

His final roles in ASD and IGIS were compliance and governance related.”

Yet Jim – and Vicki and Adam and Steve and Lynn and all the others – received a  “thanks but no thanks” letter from Lyndoch in the mail.

This is all the evidence we need, surely, to say the membership process has become corrupted by something or someone and is failing to uphold the spirit on which Lyndoch was founded.

Let’s make no bones about it, this is all about keeping power and control.

Because under the Lyndoch constitution, members have voting rights. They can call meetings. They can ask questions at the AGM about things like paying $1.3m for the Warrnambool Medical Clinic. They might even – gasp – try to become a board member.

And Lyndochland™ can’t have that.

But here’s the really shocking bit: the people who are choosing to exclude the community, are from our community, and that is what surprises and hurts locals the most.

The current board is prepared to go along with this charade. Why?

Because it is an absolute charade and it will come crashing down eventually, just as it has when this sort of exclusion and manipulation has been tried elsewhere.

In a small community, you can only get away with it for so long.

I hope the Lyndoch board remembers this: they are the ones who will be held accountable, they live here, they are part of us, and one day they will be asked to explain why those who worried for Lyndoch, who had no motive other than care and concern, were turned away.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

One of the many concerns swirling around Lyndoch Living is whether its plan to build a multi-million dollar medical clinic will send the place broke.

It is important to understand that when Lyndoch bought the Warrnambool Medical Clinic and the Health Spot for a total of $1.6 million, it did not buy any physical buildings.

Lyndoch does not own the WMC building on the corner of Liebig St and Raglan Parade: that building remains privately owned by a handful of people.

The $1.3 million cost for the WMC was almost made up entirely of buying the goodwill, which basically means paying a lot of money on the hope that patients will still keep coming to that clinic.

Indeed the cost of the WMC assets was only $153,000, presumably made up of some furniture, some tissue boxes and maybe a couple of boxes of sterile gloves in assorted colours thrown in for good measure.

As part of this goodwill, the doctors sign a contract that they will hang around for a certain time and I believe these contracts are for two years.

Some doctors with the WMC wanted no part of the sale to Lyndoch, so they left early last year.

(Doctors are contractors, so, just like a plumber or a carpenter, they can be contracted to work for a certain time, but they can also leave at the end of that time. This means GPs are in control of their destiny with a clinic, not the other way around.)

And here is the crunch: while Lyndoch has paid $1.6 million to buy two medical clinics, it is now going to spend many more millions – we don’t know how many – to build a brand new clinic at Lyndoch, on Hopkins Rd.

This clinic, according to Lyndoch’s own words, will include GPs, allied health services, radiology services and maybe even a dentist.

Holymaloolah. Talk about moving away from your core business of looking after the old folks!

And this is why so many people are nervous. There are too many unanswered questions and too many examples of regional medical clinics that have gone belly up in the past 18 months, including the Tristar Medical Group in Mildura, Traralgon and Wangaratta; the Gunnedah Mackellar Rural Health Service, and, closer to home, the Ballan District Health and Care which has a model very similar to what Lyndoch is planning and which last year received a State Government bail out.

Google them all for a sobering read on risk.

If a medical clinic is such a great move for Lyndoch, why can’t we see the business plan?

Does Warrnambool need a brand new medical clinic at Lyndoch? Is there the demand?

Will the elderly residents be forced to use the GPs – and other services – at the clinic? Will the Lyndoch staff?

How much will it cost? Where is all the money coming from? What are the expected returns?

So, so many questions and still no answers, yet the wrecking ball – which will see Tomlinson wing demolished to make way for this clinic – is just a few months away from swinging.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Hear that? Crickets. Not a word. Nada. Nothing. Zip.

A full 48 hours has passed since the much anticipated monthly board meeting of Lyndoch Living where it was decided which members of the community, if any, would be good enough to become members of Lyndoch, which is owned by the community.

Among those who applied, as we know, is Vicki Jellie AM, who was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia for her services to the community for her work with Peter’s Project to build a cancer centre in Warrnambool.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Well, well, well…. it turns out former Warrnambool Racing Club chief Peter Downs resigned from the Lyndoch board months ago, but, oddly, officials weren’t told until the very day after The Terrier post on Facebook.

Mr Downs resigned on 18 December 2019 and the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) is supposed to be told of such changes within 28 days.

Despite this, and despite Lyndoch having held at least one board meeting since then, ASIC wasn’t formally notified until 17 February – the day after the Facebook post on The Terrier.

Mr Downs’ profile was also suddenly whipped down from the Lyndoch website.

Funny, that.

As it stands, there has been no public statement by Lyndoch about Mr Downs’ departure after three years on the board, and just three months after he was re-elected for a second term.

While I am sure we’re all happy to help Lyndoch to keep up with its governance free of charge (!), the bigger picture here is cause for concern.

Who replaces Mr Downs?

As we now know, while Mr Downs’ seat at the table sat empty, the Lyndoch board was rejecting membership applications left, right and centre.

You have to be a member of Lyndoch to become a board member.

No new members = nobody can nominate for the board.

Memberships were discarded instantly because the applicants happened to know me, however closely or distantly, or have ‘liked’ a post from The Terrier.

Wow, to think that passes as acceptable.

Board vacancies no longer have to be advertised, as they were under the old rules of Lyndoch that were changed without any of us noticing.

Now, when a vacancy arises, the board members and CEO just hunt around for their preferred applicants.

If any other public body worked this way – imagine the WCC councillors and CEO deciding who could be on the council – there would be rioting in the streets.

For the wider community to have no chance to nominate for the Lyndoch board is an outrage.

In any other world, this would be called branch stacking, or insider trading, or a closed shop, or a cabal, yet we are supposed to accept it as normal.

I keep saying it, Lyndoch is owned by the community and run by the board on our behalf.

That board will hold its monthly meeting on Tuesday.

There it will decide who will replace Mr Downs. The names are in.

It will also decide which membership applications, including that of Vicki Jellie AM, will be accepted or tossed in the bin.

It’s going to be a very interesting test.

There are troubles at Lyndoch. I am going to keep saying it, despite the attempts to silence those who say the Emperor is naked.

Does the current board feel happy with how things are being run? Do they agree with this shutting out of the community? Are they monitoring the numbers of staff on sick leave? Are they happy to sit back and watch and then say they knew nothing and did nothing?

There is a lot to be learnt from what is now unfolding at the Warrnambool City Council about speaking up and standing up.

I, for one, am waiting to see who from the Lyndoch board emerges as a Bernadette Northeast – on the front foot – or as a Cr Michael Neoh – far too little, far too late.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Let’s get straight to it. Lyndoch Living is a registered charity that has no right to spend more than $150,000* sponsoring Warrnambool’s Grand Annual steeplechase.

In fact, this immoral deal between our community-owned aged care home and the Warrnambool Racing Club makes a lie of an important promise made by Lyndoch to us 10 years ago.

Let me explain.

Contrary to recent reports, there is no “commercial arm” of Lyndoch that will provide private money for Lyndoch to sponsor the Grand Annual Steeplechase for another three years, having already sponsored it for three.

The race is being sponsored by Waterfront Living, which are the up-market retirement apartments built by Lyndoch near the Hopkins River bridge and which first went on sale in 2014.

Waterfront Living was built by Lyndoch using public money, is still managed by Lyndoch, and remains a full subsidiary of Lyndoch – the board and CEO who look after Lyndoch are also in charge of Waterfront Living.

Waterfront is not some sort of separate, private entity that gets to spend its money wherever it likes. It is a part of Lyndoch, which is a charity.

And here comes the crunch.

Why did Lyndoch build these apartments? To make money to put back into Lyndoch.

Former Lyndoch CEO Rhys Boyle, who retired in 2015, made this very promise to the community when the apartments were built.

This is what he said at the time:

“Every cent made by this project will go back into our business to keep it operational.”

Every cent.

And then this:

“This development isn’t about making profit for profit’s sake. Lyndoch as an organisation can’t be benevolent to our residents if we’re not making enough money to put back into the business.”

 

I added the bold type, because I need to shout these words from the page.

We are being duped.

We now have clear proof – from the very top of Lyndoch – that the money coming in to Lyndoch from the apartment sales was never intended to go toward a horse race.

It was to go toward caring for the residents.

There is no possible justification for such a sponsorship deal, especially when Lyndoch is operating at a loss, which it has done for four of the past five years.

Any money from Waterfront – every cent – is to go back into Lyndoch so the hard-working staff can provide the best care to residents, including things like new, comfortable chairs, quality food, good coffee and yes, a steady supply of sheets, towels and face-washers.

I, for one, have had enough of the spin and the failure of the board to scrutinise every inch of Lyndoch’s spending on our behalf.

The board, if it needs reminding, is there to represent the community who still own Lyndoch, just as we have for more than 60 years.

The board is our voice and they are letting us down.

If there is one thing about our community, perhaps because we are surrounded by dairy farms, it’s that we can smell the scent of bullshite and we know when things are not right.

Sponsoring a horse race with Lyndoch money is not right.

As the ultimate owners of Lyndoch, it is time for the community to speak up on behalf of those who can’t, because if we don’t, we are letting down our loved ones in Lyndoch and we are letting down all of the residents and their families.

You can contact the Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers, the Hon Luke Donnellan, here: luke.donnellan@parliament.vic.gov.au

You can contact the Lyndoch chair, Kerry Nelson, here: knelson@mpower.org.au

And you can contact the Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission here: https://www.acnc.gov.au/raise-concern

I wish I could say this was the end of the Lyndoch stories, but there is still a long way to go before everything is out on the table.

More soon.

* the cost of the sponsorship has never been declared by Lyndoch, but is believed to be around $80,000-$100,000 for each three-year sponsorship.

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