Lyndoch Living concerns amid pandemic met with silence

Questions around two people from Melbourne entering Lyndoch and a delay in the issuing of masks to all staff have failed to produce a murmur from the Lyndoch board.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

This past week has seen two extremely serious issues arise at Lyndoch Living aged care in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic and yet the response from the board is a wall of silence.

First, Lyndoch only issued masks to all of its staff yesterday: 12 days after the Federal health minister declared masks mandatory for staff in all aged care homes in Victoria.

Second, Lyndoch allowed two people from Melbourne into its facility last Thursday and Friday, despite that city being in full lockdown and a declaration from the Victorian Chief Health Officer that, as of last Wednesday night, tightened access to aged care homes even further.

(https://www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/visiting-care-facilities-covid-…)

I asked the board members – chair and MPower CEO Kerry Nelson, hairdresser and W’bool City Councillor Sue Cassidy, accountant Kane Grant from Sinclair & Wilson, retired academic Rob Wallis, nursing academics Suzanne Coulson and Lorraine Mielnik, agriculturalist Ron Page, WCC manager Andrew Paton and real estate agent Percy Eccles – if they were concerned and if they intended to investigate.

Silence.

Not a single word.

I am not sure who the board represents, but it is clearly not the community.

We have not been given any explanation, or had any response to these concerns, from the CEO, the chair, or the board.

Lyndoch is community owned in theory, but it might as well be owned by Bupa.

Fortunately there are still people who will speak up for us and the most vulnerable people in our community in the face of this devastating pandemic.

South-west Victoria Upper House MP Bev McArthur said by email last night that she was “alarmed” by the allegations around people from Melbourne entering Lyndoch and would be investigating the matter further.

“There is no question that aged care facilities should have bulletproof infection control strategies, and we already have seen the tragic consequences of failures in this area,” she said.

“I will certainly contact the senior management of Lyndoch Living to ask for explanation of this apparent incident, and reassurance that proper controls are in place to protect vulnerable residents and indeed the whole local community.”

Local MP Roma Britnell was less direct. She suggested concerns about any breaches of the restrictions could be forwarded to the police.

As of today, Victoria is moving toward compulsory masks in public and even tighter restrictions on social contact and travel.

In this climate, I cannot understand why any aged care facility would be taking any risks unless it was absolutely unavoidable.

What is Lyndoch’s reasoning for its actions of the past week?

As it sits, we – the broader community – still have no answers to that question.

Covid-19 questions for Lyndoch Living

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Given Covid-19 is gaining a terrifying grip on aged care homes in Victoria, I sent an email this morning to Lyndoch Living to find out why masks are not yet compulsory for all staff and all visitors.

I also wanted to find out why two professionals from Melbourne were allowed into Lyndoch Living last week, for what appears to have been non-essential, non-medical purposes.

Lyndoch has a ban on visitors who are from or have been in Melbourne.

This is the email:

Dear Lyndoch Media Unit,

I am hoping you can assist with the following questions:

I have had a number of people contact me these past four days in regard to the mask-wearing policy for staff and visitors at Lyndoch Living and why masks are not mandatory.

Can you outline why Lyndoch Living has not yet introduced a compulsory mask wearing policy for all staff given the Federal Government directive on 17 July that all aged care workers across Victoria would be required to do so?

(https://www.health.gov.au/ministers/the-hon-greg-hunt-mp/media/two-million-more-face-masks-for-victorian-aged-care-and-disability-workers)

Is one of the issues that there are not enough masks available to provide to all staff?

Also, concerns have been raised with me about two visitors to Lyndoch Living last week who were apparently from Melbourne and who stayed in the Waterfront Living complex.

I understand these same people had access to Swinton Wing, while wearing hard hats, which suggests they were not visiting Lyndoch for medical or aged care service related purposes, but related to the construction works at Swinton Wing.

Those who contacted me were understandably concerned that it appears people travelling from Melbourne were permitted into Lyndoch and Waterfront Living complex for non-essential purposes and in contravention of the current ban on Melbourne visitors.

I am hoping you can clarify the situation to put these concerns to rest.

Regards,

Carol

I will let you know if I get a response.

In the meantime, as I write this, there are 764 active cases of Covid-19 in aged care homes across Victoria.

According to the Prime Minister Scott Morrison, just under one fifth of Victoria’s 430 aged care facilities had been affected by C19.

Given the increase in C19 cases in south-west Victoria, Cobden Health moved in to full lock down eight days ago.

Mercy Place, in Warrnambool, also moved into temporary lockdown this week until at least tomorrow, with no new visitors other than those who already have visitation plans in place.

Moyne Health, Gillin Park, and Opal aged care have made it compulsory for staff to wear masks.

As Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt says in his media release from 17 July above, the government has made another two million masks available to aged care and the disability sector.

The last Covid-19 update on the Lyndoch Living website was that same date, 17 July: 11 days ago.

As I said above, I will let you know if I get a response.

Oh what a tangled web we weave in Warrnambool

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Tight knit: I had plans to write today about the W’bool City Council election campaign being in full swing – it started with the knifing of the CEO and has gathered full strength now that Cr Mike “The Real Chief” Neoh starts popping up in the paper with all manner of either un-costed, outlandish or recycled ideas from years ago…..BUT…..

BUT this is too good not to share.

It’s a visual map put together by a reader showing a tiny corner of the spider web that operates in Warrnambool between our public boards, public institutions and authorities.

It’s the same map I sketched out in words last week on this page.

Wow! It looks like an FBI crime map, where the victim is Warrnambool, strangled by the thin, tight cord of mutually beneficial connections.

And this is only the merest skim across the surface of the ties between Lyndoch Living and WCC.

It doesn’t even touch on many of the most sought after boards and executive spots including the Warrnambool Racing Club, MPower, South-West TAFE, South West Healthcare, Wannon Water, Brophy, Regional Development Australia Barwon South West, Leadership Great South Coast, the Liberal Party, the Labor Party and all of the various partnerships, hook ups and cross fertilisation that happens behind the scenes.

Boiling steadily beneath the surface is a soup of new names and old, both well-known and less so, like Anson, McKenna, Philpott, Gaston, Ermacora, Rule, Waterhouse, Power, Nelson, Lane, Lee-Ack, Broekman, Cassidy, Boyle, Jeffers, Neoh, Wallis…around and around and around we go.

I will pluck out just one as an example: Steven Waterhouse. I don’t know Steven Waterhouse, but according to Linkedin he is General Manager at Wannon Water, Chair of South West TAFE, and Deputy Chair Warrnambool Racing Club. That’s a trifecta!

I am sure many regional cities could draw a similar map, but is it a good thing, or is it stifling? Is it mentoring, or is it controlling? Is it about maintaining power or sharing it?

All of these questions are swirling around my head as we prepare to vote for our next council.

This election, more than ever, is a chance for change at least within one public institution – a chance to break the mould. A fresh start, with fresh names, who you will come to know in coming weeks.

It is going to take a lot of hard work for these faces to bust through: to garner even a small corner of the thousands of dollars of free publicity that Cr Neoh, for example, has enjoyed for his recycled ideas, but I am hoping they can do it.

I don’t want someone on council who will have been there 20 years. That’s unhealthy in any democracy.

And I don’t want someone who is the puppet of someone else. That’s also unhealthy in any democracy.

If we want change, we are going to have work hard for it. I am ready and I hope you are too.

When the muzzles come out, we have to keep barking

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Your right to know: Two weeks ago, I received a letter from my union-appointed lawyers who informed me Lyndoch Living has been monitoring my two Facebook pages, one being my private page and one being this page.

They attached a number of screenshots provided by Melbourne lawyers K&L Gates on behalf of Lyndoch, showing comments by followers and readers of The Terrier.

Those commenting were Warrnambool people expressing their opinion on how every membership application lodged with Lyndoch Living had been rejected.

These comments related to stories I had published on February 16 and 23.

My lawyers also attached a number of quotes from those stories that were highlighted by K&L Gates on behalf of their client.

The recommendation in response to this legal letter from K&L Gates was that I remove the articles and the comments in the screenshots.

The past two weeks has been a time of enormous worry for so many of us because of a resurgence of Covid-19.

It has been so challenging for our aged care homes and their fabulous staff, including those working so hard on the ground at Lyndoch Living.

What I have also found enormously worrying these past two weeks, however, is the rapid erosion of our right to know. Our right to have a say. Of our right to speak up when we see our public institutions being hijacked by vested interests.

Lyndoch Living belongs to us. The Warrnambool City Council is answerable to us. We must never forget this.

And right now, while we are fighting a pandemic, we are being forced to also fight for our democratic rights which are being pulled out from under us one bit at a time.

Secrecy and silence is becoming the new normal.

I’ll be honest, legal letters scare the shite out of me, but I became a journalist for a reason and I am not going to be scared into silence, and, I hope, neither are you.

So we will keep going. We have to, and I want to thank every single one of you who is helping me to make that happen.

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Unpicking the tight-knit connections of WCC and Lyndoch

Links: Lyndoch Living CEO Doreen Power, WCC Councillor Sue Cassidy, WCC planning chief Andrew Paton, WCC CEO Vikki King and Lyndoch board member Prof Rob Wallis.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Oooh Warrnambool can be a tight-knit little place and the knit between two of our biggest public institutions – Warrnambool City Council and Lyndoch Living – just got a little tighter with the unexpected elevation of Vikki King to council CEO.

While the seven councillors continue to rip each other’s heads off and try to justify why they treat the public like numbskulls (#whitenoise), I thought I would briefly turn the channel to another station and unpick at least one row in the roll-neck sweater of the Warrnambool club.

As we know, the crucial vote for Ms King being hand-picked for the top role by four of the seven councillors came from Councillor Sue Cassidy (or as someone accidentally, but prophetically, said as a spoonerism the other day, Coup Sassidy), so let’s start there.

(Needles up! Cast on…)

Cr Cassidy is a member of the Lyndoch Living board.

Cr Cassidy, owner of Unisexcuts hair salon, is close to the Lyndoch CEO Doreen Power and, together with Ms Power, is one of three directors of Lyndoch Healthcare Pty Ltd that was set up to oversee the Warrnambool Medical Clinic which was bought by Lyndoch last year.

The Warrnambool Medical Clinic is set to relocate at some point into a new, multi-million dollar “super clinic” being planned for Lyndoch.

The third director of Lyndoch Healthcare Pty Ltd is Andrew Paton. Mr Paton is the Director of City Growth – the head of planning – at the Warrnambool City Council.

He is also on the Lyndoch board.

Mr Paton is also part of the council’s Economic Development Advisory Committee, where Ms Power is one of the nine committee members.

Another Lyndoch board member is former Deakin academic and former Wannon Water deputy chair Professor Rob Wallis.

Prof Wallis is also the independent chair of the council’s Audit and Risk Committee.

Cr Cassidy also sits on that committee.

Prof Wallis, as it happens, was also until recently one of two independent people on the council’s Chief Executive Employment Matters Advisory Committee, which advised on matters to do with the CEO.

That was until last week when, according to the Standard, he resigned in the wake of the unprecedented coup against CEO Peter Schneider.

Cr Cassidy was part of that coup, which loops us right back around and up and down to the new council CEO, Ms King.

Prior to being anointed CEO, Ms King already had connections to her Lyndoch counterpart, Ms Power.

They were both members of Beyond the Bell – a local network to encourage and support children in education – around 2016-17 when the program went through a period of transition on the back of receiving significant government funding.

As a result of that transition, Brophy CEO Francis Broekman became chair.

As an aside, Mr Broekman is the husband of former Mayor and long-term councillor Jacinta Ermacora who is now chair of Wannon Water. The CEO of Wannon Water, Andrew Jeffers, is on the board of Beyond the Bell.

Up and over and around we go….knit one, pearl one….but I digress.

Ms King and Ms Power are also on the executive committee of the South West Primary Care Partnership which is a collective of health service agencies.

Ms Power is chair and Ms King is deputy chair of this network.

The partnership itself, as of last year, is now included in the financial statements of Lyndoch Living.

Some of the SWPHP members have also been involved in the transition of the Warrnambool Medical Clinic over to Lyndoch’s control and ownership.

(Needles down. Cast off…)

This little knitting exercise is not only interesting for the links between these WCC and Lyndoch – but also for where they sit in terms of public accountability.

Both Lyndoch Living and WCC are arguably in the middle of unprecedented change and will face ongoing questions from us, the public, whom they serve, about their operations, direction, expenditure and staff morale.

It will be fascinating to watch how these questions are handled in coming months, as we enter annual general report time, annual general meeting time, and council elections.

Will we see greater transparency and openness, or will the wool be once again pulled over our eyes?

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