Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Even South West MP Roma Britnell can’t get straight answers from the Lyndoch Living board.

The board has given short shrift to Ms Britnell’s recent questions about its blanket rejection of 115 membership applications from the community.

Its fulsome response to Ms Britnell was, wait for it, that it was “acting within the Lyndoch constitution.

End of conversation.

Ms Britnell was told nothing more.

At least the board is even handed when it comes to answering questions: it ignores everyone.

Ms Britnell, like the rest of us, learned nothing about why the applications were rejected, the criteria used, or the process followed.

We can only surmise, therefore, that there was no process or selection criteria.

It doesn’t matter that Ms Britnell, a State MP and our elected representative, was asking questions on behalf of her local constituents.

She was given zero from the board that, in theory, is also supposed to represent the community.

So if Ms Britnell can’t get an answer, what hope does someone like Warrnambool resident Margy Jackson have?

Margy, a retired school teacher, recently wrote to Lyndoch chair Sue Cassidy expressing her concerns about Lyndoch and the cutting out of the community.

Margy has had no response.

Former Deakin Professor James Dunbar and retired naval officer Jim Burke wrote to the board some months ago expressing their concerns about the viability of the $22m medical clinic being built at Lyndoch.

They have had no response.

It appears that the current board of seven volunteers – Ms Cassidy, Kane Grant, Andrew Paton, Kerry Nelson, Prof Rob Wallis, Lorraine Mielnik and Ron Page – has decided they are answerable only to themselves and the CEO.

Have they lost sight of who built and supported Lyndoch for so many decades?

Why else would the board agree to turn its back on their own community?

And why would these remaining board members (Percy Eccles and Suzanne Coulson quit earlier this year) want to be a part of such a closed shop?

Only they can answer that question.

I don’t expect any answers soon, but with Lyndoch’s staff and residential care – its core business – suffering under the board’s watch, the questions will only keep coming.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

And so it continues…another experienced Nurse Unit Manager has taken sick leave from Lyndoch Living and is unlikely to return.

This means three out of the four unit managers across our largest aged care home have either taken extended sick leave or resigned in the past two months.

As of last week, the Clinical Leader in part of the hostel area (Swinton Level 1 and Swinton Ground) also took stress leave.

This means part of the brand new $13 million Swinton Wing has lost BOTH its Nurse Unit Manager and its Clinical Leader.

These are significant, expert positions in the daily care of our elderly.

As I have already reported, another experienced Registered Nurse working in the executive area is on sick leave, in addition to the Director of Nursing, the top of the tree, who has been gone since early August.

None of these people are expected to return.

In the past two months, an entire layer of senior, very experienced staff across Lyndoch Living and May Noonan has gone.

The board needs to ask why and then tell us what is going on, and what is being done about it.

These experienced staff are not leaving because they want to.

They are not leaving because they are disgruntled, vexatious, disgusting, disloyal or disliked, which is among the assortment of put-downs that are designed to discredit those who dare to push back.

No, these staff are leaving because they are no longer able to cope with being asked to do the impossible, with less staff, less resources and less support.

More than 200 staff have left Lyndoch in the past five years and the impact of that exodus of experience is starting to bite.

According to well-placed sources, Lyndoch is now shuffling the deckchairs, spreading its staff thin, and relying heavily on Personal Care Workers (PCW) – who are hard-working, but they are not qualified nurses – to fill the gaps.

In the case of the Swinton area that has lost both its NUM and Clinical Manager, the PCWs are trying to cope with 43 residents, including 28 dementia residents and 15 others, of which at least 10 are high care.

Those close to the situation are now fearful of the impact on residents.

“Things are getting dangerous and with COVID in the community, it’s bound to get worse,” one source said.

Another source said Lyndoch was “forcing out skilled nurses without thinking of the consequences”.

“Why are they not working with these skilled nurses to keep these skills retained?”

I am happy to be proven wrong and all the Lyndoch board has to do is tell you that I am wrong.

The board could pull out whatever evidence it has to show all is well.

But the board can’t do that, because these are the facts and all is not well.

Yet in the face of these facts, both the Lyndoch board and the Lyndoch executive remain silent.

So it’s up to the community – and brave sources – to put what we know on the public record so that neither the board or executive can claim they didn’t know, or didn’t believe, what is now unfolding.

We need to keep speaking up and poking and probing and questioning on behalf of the staff and, most importantly, the 240 frail and elderly residents who are among the most vulnerable members of our community. They are counting on us.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Warrnambool has two choices. It can accept that the community has been cut out of Lyndoch, or it can fight back.

Warrnambool vet Dr Michael McCluskey is among those now doing the latter.

Dr McCluskey is challenging the rejection of his membership application to Lyndoch Living on the grounds of discrimination.

Dr McCluskey lodged a complaint with VCAT today, arguing that the decision by the Lyndoch board was illegal under the Victorian Equal Opportunity Act.

“The only information that can be filled out on the Lyndoch membership form is my name and address,” Dr McCluskey said.

“There was no request from Lyndoch for any further information from me.

“Given this, the Lyndoch board could only have rejected me on the basis of my name and my gender, because they know nothing else about me, my background, or my qualifications, or interests.”

A very good point, because if the Lyndoch board had bothered to find out more about Dr McCluskey, they would have discovered the following:

He holds a University degree with Honours in the field of biological sciences (Bachelor of Veterinary Science);

Extra post graduate University level study with multiple units in the fields of psychology, law and economics;

Five years as Director of Finance on Board of Management at a local community sporting organisation handling a multi-million dollar annual turnover;

More than six years as both volunteer and member of committee of management of  Warrnambool Riding for Disabled;

Is a current member and also serving on committee of management of Water for East Timor, a locally-based charity that is overseas focussed.

Dr McCluskey didn’t apply for membership to Lyndoch as part of the recent community membership drive – he applied several months earlier.

He is now among a long list of community minded souls who have had their applications flatly rejected.

This means everyone who applied is also automatically ruled out of nominating for the board at the AGM on 26 October, as only members can apply.

Having read that 115 people from across the community were rejected last month, Dr McCluskey decided it was time to push back.

“I’m hoping this can become a test case on behalf of the community,” he says, “and that VCAT will at least decide that Lyndoch has a case to answer”.

He hopes others will be encouraged to follow his lead, particularly as the VCAT application is free of charge due to the issue falling under the Equal Opportunity Act.

Lyndoch Living has used the “no reason” clause in its Constitution to dismiss every single membership application from the general public these past two years.

Those who have tried these past two years include now Mayor Vicki Jellie, AM, senior SWHC nurse Kate Sloan, aged care expert Janet Dunn, leading local businesswomen Natalie Stevens and Marie Bird, the inaugural Director of the Greater Green Triangle University Department of Rural Health, Professor James Dunbar, educator and MPower board member Helen Bayne, former Lyndoch senior nurse Tracey Dean, educators Tina Reilly and Claire Bishop, retirees in Lyndoch’s Waterfront Living apartments, and dozens of locals who care about Lyndoch as a much-loved community asset.

All were bumped by the board without reason.

But a “no reason” clause can be fragile, as WCC CEO Peter Schneider proved with his Supreme Court case.

No doubt the Lyndoch board, Sue Cassidy (hairdresser/salon owner), vice chair Kerry Nelson (ex MPower CEO), treasurer Kane Grant (Sinclair&Wilson), retired Deakin academics Lorraine Mielnik and Prof Rob Wallis, Ron Page (dairy industry) and WCC director Andrew Paton hope the community will just accept it.

In my opinion, the board’s loyalty is to the CEO. It is not to the wider community.

Those prepared to push back, however, are loyal to the spirit of Lyndoch, to its vulnerable residents who must be its first priority, and to the increasingly exhausted staff who care for them.

Dr McCluskey has cast another stone in what has become a David and Goliath battle. We shall see where it lands.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Update: A $30,000 corporate sign installed at Lyndoch Living last year has been denied a permit by the Warrnambool City Council planning unit.

The 5m-long sign was installed on the side of the new Swinton Wing last November without a permit.

A permit was lodged retrospectively in December by consultants, Fastnet, on behalf of Lyndoch Living.

Several objections* were lodged in January on a number of grounds, including that the sign was double the 3sq/m area size permitted under planning laws for what is classified as a “sensitive” residential zone.

After nine months of back and forth with Fastnet, the WCC planning team has now rejected the sign on the grounds of its size.

The sign was also originally illuminated at night, until that was found to be flat out illegal under planning laws.

Lyndoch Living now has 60 days to appeal the decision to VCAT.

If there is no appeal, the sign must be removed.

*As an East Warrnambool resident, I was among the objectors.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Tonight, a message to the Lyndoch board from the front line: help.

This entire Lyndoch campaign by The Terrier has had one simple motivation, which is to expect the best of care for our elderly and vulnerable residents.

That must be the priority.

But Lyndoch is drowning.

I have written so much about this, I have shown you so many photographs of the shift shortages, like the one above, and now we are in uncharted territory.

Because Lyndoch, for the first time and unlike any other nursing home in Warrnambool, is facing sanctions unless it gets its act together after failing care standards set by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission.

And it’s facing this battle while suffering acute staff shortages and losing more senior staff in one sweep than, I would argue, at any time in its 60 year history.

In the past four weeks the Director of Nursing has gone. The head of May Noonan Hostel in Terang has gone.

At least one nurse unit manager has resigned.

And another two, experienced senior staff last week joined the growing list of those taking extended sick or stress leave. There will be more.

Between them, these individuals have decades of nursing experience that is not easily replaced.

Some Registered Nurses are working double shifts, with the second shift overnight when they are the only RN in the entire Lyndoch complex.

They are tired.

Other care staff are “top and tailing” – starting their shifts two hours early, or finishing two to three hours late, just to help cover the gaps.

Everybody I have contact with is exhausted or upset, but they keep pressing on because they care deeply for the residents.

I could write reams, based on the cries for help that come in each week from Lyndoch staff.

But instead I will convey the message of just one person who summed it all up.

This person has never contacted The Terrier before, but they are someone you need to hear, and we recently spoke for an hour.

They could no longer stay silent, they said, after reading that highly experienced SWHC nurse Kate Sloan had her membership application rejected by the board.

This, they said, proved the board was not listening.

It was not listening to the care staff who have been trying to hold it all together in the hope of change.

Staff have tried to raise their concerns, but if they speak up publicly, comment on this page, or approach the board directly, they are disciplined. (Test: see how many Lyndoch nursing staff comment on this post.)

Lyndoch staff surveys have come and gone.

Secret meetings between Lyndoch staff and local MPs have come and gone.

Senior staff have raised warnings in exit interviews and, in some cases, been brutally direct about an individual who cannot be named for legal reasons.

And little changes, other than staff continue to leave, the deck chairs are shuffled, and the gaps keep getting bigger.

I asked this person at the end of our long conversation what message they wanted to pass on to the Lyndoch Living board:

“I want the public and the board to know that the situation is every bit as bad as what it is.

“The staffing situation has become diabolical…the shortages are near impossible to deal with. What you are saying, it’s happening, it’s telling it like it is.

“The board need to get a sense of the immense pressure the staff are under so please, listen, come down and speak to the staff directly. Please be interested in what is actually going on.”

This begs a question, does the Lyndoch board know what is going on?

Chair Sue Cassidy (Unisexcuts), Vice Chair Kerry Nelson (ex MPower CEO), Treasurer Kane Grant (Sinclair&Wilson), Prof Rob Wallis, Lorraine Mielnik, Ron Page, Andrew Paton (WCC) – do you ask? Are you told? Have you ever met with the non-executive staff?

All good questions for the AGM on 26 October which Kate Sloan, had she been accepted as a member, could have asked, and that is precisely why she wasn’t.