Carol Altmann – The Terrier

What does an illegal sign, a half-built tavern and being woken by trucks at 6.30am on a weekend all have in common?

They are shining examples of the failings of planning laws that are supposed to help protect the rights of Warrnambool residents.

I am sure you have examples of your own, but let me pick out three, including two I know well, because they stem from my own neighbourhood.

The first is a textbook case of “just do it, and ask later”.

It’s the 5m-long, illuminated sign that was installed on the side of Lyndoch Living last November without a permit.

You know the one – Lyndoch didn’t bother to apply for a permit, perhaps thinking nobody would notice, even when it was switched on at night.

Such an illuminated sign is illegal in a residential area, so after complaints to the Warrnambool City Council, it was switched off.

The sign, however, is still there.

It’s still awaiting a decision on a permit lodged belatedly in December.

That was nine months ago*.

“The non-compliant sign remains an open enforcement matter which Council continues to work on,” is how the WCC spokesman put it.

Why hasn’t it been taken down in the meantime? Nobody from the council staff can tell me.

And what have been the consequences for Lyndoch acting without a permit in the first place? Zero.

Just as the penalty for Lyndoch digging a road through a public reserve was zero.

And just as the penalty for Lyndoch failing to apply the parking and traffic plan for its medical hub was zero.

Laws, schmaws. Who cares? Move aside.

All of this has unfolded at Lyndoch while WCC director Andrew Paton sits on its board and former councillor Sue Cassidy is chair. Have they not noticed?

The latest battle for residents around Lyndoch is construction noise from the new medical clinic.

At least five times in the past seven weeks, nearby residents – including a 90 year old widow and a frontline shift worker  – have been woken by noise before 7am weekdays and 9am on Saturday.

This is against the noise laws.

The council, which enforces these laws, has been alerted and has in turn alerted the construction company, Nicholson, but still the breaches go on, including this morning.

Consequences so far? Nothing.

A spokesman for Nicholson said this afternoon that it “places the utmost importance in complying with all regulations including EPA and local Government.”

“We would like to re-assure all residents on Hopkins Road that (we)  take any and all complaints very seriously and would encourage any residents with concerns to engage in direct dialogue with us.

“Nicholson Construction will be contacting neighbouring residents in the coming days….”.

Let’s shimmy across to north Warrnambool and the running sore of the Northpoint tavern/hotel on Hayley Drive which has been unfinished for 15 years.

Fifteen years – is this a record?

This half-built project has been through four councils and is about to ask for yet another extension from a fifth.

Any consequences or penalties after 15 years?

Zero.

What a complete failure of planning laws and what a complete failure to protect residents from a half-built eyesore.

Meanwhile, the average Warrnamboolian is cut no such slack for breaking the rules.

Imagine any of us trying the same arguments as above to avoid, say, an $80 parking fine:

You: “Sorry, I forgot I need to pay for parking.”

Local laws: “Okay. No problem.”

You: “Oops! I need a bit more time. Just another hour and I am on to it, promise”.

Local laws: “No stress. Chill!”

You: “Actually, something has come up, do you mind if I park my car here all day and sort it out tomorrow?”

Local laws: “Great idea. See you then!”

In your dreams.

* I was co-signatory to an objection to this sign in January. In the interests of full disclosure, you can read the objection here.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Something nasty is brewing at Lyndoch Living, with senior care staff being lined up as scapegoats for its recent failings in aged care standards.

My understanding is that one of those is the Director of Nursing, who has been expected to absorb an almost indescribable amount of pressure. 

Lyndoch has already gone through one Director of Nursing in the past six years. 

If the current DON does not survive, then it will be two. Do you see something wrong here? I do.

At least one nurse unit manager has already resigned.

That individual was given an impossible task, managed to some how pull it off, but has been chucked over the cliff anyway.

Another two senior individuals who have been pulled into the gunsights have taken sick leave.

This is not where the blame must fall.

Staff have been crying out for more support, more resources, and more trained staff to help meet the needs of 240 residents.

These resources have not arrived.

The care staff at Lyndoch have been working under-resourced for too long and THIS is why it has failed the national standards.

The chickens are coming home to roost.

As I have written about so many times before, those working on the floor have been struggling to cover shifts.

New nursing staff and personal care workers have often found themselves completely overwhelmed.

Some newcomers have been thrown into situations where they are caring for an entire ward, on their own, overnight.

Similarly, just one single Registered Nurse is often in charge of the whole place overnight.

Add to this the unreliability of the nurse communication system and the failings of the resident call bell system and you have a pressure cooker full of stress, anxiety and downright fear.

This is what is happening at Lyndoch Living.

Residents cannot possibly receive the best of care in these conditions and they are conditions that the staff have been struggling under for years.

And the brewing storm is not confined to the nursing and care staff. 

My sources tell me that other areas, including the catering and kitchen staff, are also now under the hammer with cuts.

At the same time, Lyndoch is spending millions – millions – on a medical clinic that nobody asked for, and nobody wants.

As a journalist, I am not supposed to “take sides”, but I refuse to stand on the false fence of impartiality when I see wrong-doing and people about to be hurt.

So what do we do? 

Do we all just stand back and watch this unfold and leave these hard-working staff to take the rap? 

No. No, we don’t. 

What we do is once again call upon the board to stand up, to step in, and to speak up for these staff members who are a part of our community: they are us.

Silence and sitting back is no longer an option Ms Cassidy, Ms Nelson, Prof Wallis, Mr Grant, Ms Mielnik, Mr Paton and Mr Page.

Don’t look away.

The Terrier – Carol Altmann

Just when the whole saga of Lyndoch Living buying the Warrnambool Medical Clinic practice could not get any weirder, it has.

Lyndoch paid $1.3 million in 2019 for the practice, owned by well-respected GP Dr Phil Hall – but it did not buy the building.

The Liebig St building was sold on 29 July for upwards of $1.4m to an anonymous “local investor” who I can tonight reveal is none other than Dr Phil Hall.

(Land Title documents show Dr Hall was already a co-owner of the building, and bought out his partners.)

This means Dr Hall not only works for Lyndoch under contract, but he will be its landlord ($120k a year + GST) until the lease expires next July.

But that’s not the bomb.

The bomb is that the “local investor” (aka Dr Hall) reportedly wants to see the Liebig St building leased as a medical clinic after Lyndoch leaves.

“Their intent is that it remain a medical clinic beyond the current tenant’s stay,” real estate agent Danny Harris told the local paper at the time of the sale.

A medical clinic!

It’s this prospect that exposes a gaping hole in Lyndoch paying $1.3 million to buy the medical practice in the first place.

What did it actually buy?

It bought “goodwill”, which means doctors on contract and the patients who follow them.

But it appears the deal failed to include a crucial clause that the former owner of that practice could not lease a building to a competitor.

Oops.

This failure exposes the fragility of Lyndoch’s decision to wade into medical practice.

As we know, Lyndoch is spending $22 million on a brand new, three-storey, 6761 sq/m complex on Hopkins Rd that it hopes to fill with 20 GPs and other health workers.

Those 20 GPs are the backbone of the whole clinic plan.

They will each pay a substantial fee – around 35 per cent of their annual earnings – in return for a space in the clinic and support services.

But there are no guarantees the GPs will come, or will stay, because GPs are contractors: they decide where they will work, and for how long.

If a GP working for Lyndoch/Warrnambool Medical Clinic wants to leave, they simply give 30 days notice.

My sources tell me the contracts signed between the GPs and Lyndoch expire next April.

This means all bets are off until new contracts are negotiated.

As of next April, Lyndoch could – in a worst case scenario – find itself with less doctors, not more.

Lyndoch was already in a vulnerable position, but that position will become a razor edge if Dr Hall follows through on his reported plan and offers his prime slice of real estate to a new medical clinic.

Who will take up the offer, and how many GPs from Lyndoch/WMC and elsewhere (will Dr Hall be among them?) will join its ranks?

I asked Dr Hall for a comment for this piece, but he declined.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

A tip-off has landed in the terrier kennel that Lyndoch Living is set to further expand its executive by hiring former Warrnambool City Council Acting CEO Vikki King.

Until recently this tip-off was a persistent rumour, but I now have every reason to believe it’s on the cards, although it’s impossible to provide rock solid confirmation at the moment, because Lyndoch doesn’t talk to me.

(An emailed question to the Lyndoch media unit has gone unanswered.)

But Ms King, according to my sources, is set to be employed to a new, senior executive position within Lyndoch Living.

The number of executives and administration officers within Lyndoch Living has ballooned in the past five years, although the most recent figures are hard to come by.

The last time Lyndoch provided a breakdown was in 2018 when there was 60 admin staff, up from 37 in 2016.

In 2020, administration cost Lyndoch $3.07 million for the year.

If my sources are right, Ms King will soon be added to this payroll.

As we know, Ms King was director of Community Services at the Warrnambool City Council for six years, and Acting CEO for almost 12 months after the illegal sacking of CEO Peter Schneider.

Ms King resigned from the council on June 16 – just five days after Mr Schneider won his Supreme Court case and was reinstated.

Little has been heard about Ms King since, until this “rumour-turned-tip-off” bubbled to the surface.

One thing is certain, Ms King has already developed firm links to Lyndoch Living via her work at the council and separately.

As the string map published here a year ago shows (thanks to a reader), Ms King is deputy chair of the South West Primary Care Partnership that is chaired by the Lyndoch CEO.

Both Ms King and the Lyndoch CEO were also involved with Beyond the Bell/South-West Local Learning and Employment Network.

Ms King’s role as council’s director of Community Services naturally also included links with Lyndoch, especially via the council’s 2040 plan, of which Lyndoch is a partner.

And as it happens, one of the last public statements made by Ms King before her resignation from council was to announce that Lyndoch was taking over the Regional Assessment Service for elderly people wishing to stay in their homes.

We shall see in due course if my tip-off is right, or if I am barking up the wrong tree.

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.