Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Lyndoch Living has another outbreak of scabies.

The fresh outbreak in the Garden View wing comes four months after confirmation of an outbreak in the Audrey Prider Centre.

That confirmation in December came after months of complaints from residents and Lyndoch staff about a nasty rash coming and going through APC.

I am unsure about the scale of this latest outbreak, but families of residents in Garden View have been notified and all residents in Garden View are now being treated.

Lyndoch Living was contacted for comment today, but has not responded.

The scabies outbreak comes amid questions over the priorities and direction of Lyndoch Living as it prepares to build a $22 million medical clinic on site to replace the current Warrnambool Medical Clinic in Liebig St.

It also comes amid questions as to why there has been a string of resignations from Lyndoch in recent weeks, including senior executive Dr Ed Rhodes on Monday, and four members of the finance team in the past month.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

I am technically taking a break, but some stories can’t wait until the new year, and this is one of them – a confirmed outbreak of scabies in the Audrey Prider Centre at Lyndoch Living.

What a Christmas gift to residents in APC, which is a high-care dementia wing and home to some of the most vulnerable people in Lyndoch aged care.

The scabies diagnosis confirms what Lyndoch nursing staff and some residents’ families have long suspected, with a nasty rash coming and going through APC for months and months.

Lyndoch management finally brought in skin specialist Dr Werner Sinclair on 5 December and he has since issued a formal diagnosis of scabies for at least two residents.

I understand that up to eight residents are now potentially affected by what is a highly contagious infestation.

But this diagnosis by Dr Sinclair didn’t just happen.

It followed an intervention by the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation on behalf of nursing staff who were sick to death of being fobbed off.

As reported by The Terrier, the union wrote a letter to Lyndoch on 27 November demanding answers on whether there had been any suspected or confirmed cases of scabies in APC in the past six months and, if so, what had been done about it.

Some of its members, the union wrote, had been “actively treated” for suspected scabies, as had some residents, but nursing staff were “of the view” that they were not to talk about it with residents’ families, or each other.

The ANMF was also told by its members that “minimal infection control measures” had been put in place.

If what the union says is correct, this is pure damage control, if not a cover up.

One thing is certain, and that is that it took the union to put a rocket up the backside of Lyndoch about this outbreak and to bring in the experts.

This begs the bigger and more important question of why?

Why must it take the intervention of a union to see the immediate welfare of residents and staff in Audrey Prider Centre shoot to the very top of Lyndoch’s priorities?

And if the union had not intervened, would the outbreak have ever been formally diagnosed and responded to? Or would the itch just go on?

The families of some of those infected are absolutely furious by what has unfolded.

Their stories are ones of confusion and misinformation.

One woman said she learned of her mother’s scabies via a phone call from Lyndoch last Monday – December 14 – by which time her family had been to visit her mother several times and been potentially exposed.

In another case, a family member of an APC resident who is being treated for scabies, has scabies.

While scabies is not deadly, it causes an intense, almost maddening itch from tiny, burrowing mites that get under the victim’s skin.

Treatment is via either oral medication or an external lotion applied all over the body.

According to a document sent to me, Lyndoch is using the services of an infection control consultant – Victorian Infection Prevention Services – to help manage its outbreak.

Bulk supplies of one lotion, Benzemul, have been brought it to protect APC nursing staff, who were urged to start applying the lotion to themselves as of last Monday, 14 December.

It’s understood residents are also being treated with a lotion.

To contain the outbreak, APC staff must also wear long sleeves and gloves when dealing with infected residents, wash their hands after every resident contact, and dispose of all used linen immediately into a laundry skip rather than carrying it.

Scabies, to put it bluntly, is a bastard of a thing to catch, and to contain.

And all of this comes to light as the Lyndoch Living executive gathers tonight for its Christmas break up. I hope they are having a good time, because those with the scabies are certainly not.

I emailed the Lyndoch CEO Doreen Power, chair Susan Cassidy, and the Lyndoch media unit at 11am this morning for comment. I will update this piece if any comment is provided.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Leadership:

Wow, what is this that I see? There are some amazing things happening in Warrnambool in these c/v times.

I see local businesses doing their best to hold on and adapt as best they can, like Materia Bros (big shout out to that wonderful family) who are doing home deliveries of fresh produce – check out their FB page for details.

We are seeing jams and chutneys arriving on doorsteps; messages for health care workers written in chalk on footpaths; grocery runs for elderly people; hand-written cards and notes appearing in letterboxes…all prepared with sanitised hands, of course.

I love seeing this generosity of spirit happening in our city – we all do.

But what I would like to see more of is bold leadership from the top.

I want to see more of our Mayor and CEO, with at least daily updates on what the WCC is working on, and what real, practical steps are being taken to prepare for the next 12 months.

This is how long the economic fallout from this virus will last, if not longer.

I want to see updates on support packages being prepared for local businesses, solo operators, ratepayers and residents, not a ‘fly through’ of the Reid Oval upgrade, which was added to the WCC website today.

I hate to say it, but even in a sport lovin’ city like ours, sport upgrades have to come second right now.

The millions of dollars that were to be spent on Reid Oval would make a huge difference to those who will be doing it really tough in the next year or two.

There is no sugar coating it: the fallout from this virus is going to hit Warrnambool hard and we need a plan and we need it now.

I don’t envy the CEO or our Mayor in these times, but this is what leadership is all about and it’s what their jobs are all about. Leadership is easy when the going is easy, but true leadership shines when times are tough.

We are in those times.

A strong, bold, council vision delivered straight to our door: I would like to see that.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Within the calm surrounds of Lake Pertobe, there is a mass killing underway and not enough is being done to stop it.

More than 100 birds have been wiped out since an outbreak of avian botulism began to claim the birds of Lake Pertobe five weeks ago – among them ducks, cygnets, moorhens, Eurasian coots, cormorants, swans, seagulls and a crane – and the death toll is still climbing.

Most visitors to Lake Pertobe are blissfully unaware that just metres from where they are enjoying the open spaces, there are native birds unable to hold their necks up from the creeping paralysis of the botulism toxin.

These birds will most certainly drown. (Warning: the video below may be distressing).

Wildlife rescue volunteer Alexis Creed-Sycopoulis has been walking the accessible parts of the lake shore most days, and often twice a day, to collect the carcasses and the stricken, paralysed birds which she takes to the vet to be euthanised.

It is a heartbreaking job, but a critical one, as the science shows that every dead bird left in the water contaminates it only further. The threat is even greater if the carcass has become flyblown.

I joined Alexis on one of her morning pick ups, during which she found four carcasses within half an hour. Another two would be found when she returned later that night. Last Sunday, the grim count included several birds covered in maggots.

“I shouldn’t have to be doing this. I really shouldn’t have to be out here doing the work of the council to make sure these birds are not left in the water,” Alexis says.

The Warrnambool City Council parks and gardens team at Lake Pertobe also collects the dead and dying birds, but there are just not enough workers allocated to the job.

This was proven last weekend, when Alexis left a bag of dead ducks she had collected on Sunday morning at the small council depot at Lake Pertobe, thinking they would be disposed of by staff when they arrived later that day.

The bag was still there when Alexis returned on Monday morning. So were the flyblown carcasses, still in the water. There had been no council check of Lake Pertobe on Sunday, even after the two-day heatwave.

And this morning, Tuesday, Alexis found a dead duck floating in the lake at 10am, hours after the morning pick-up should have started. Meanwhile, up in town, four parks and garden staff were tending to a roundabout.

The council’s small Lake Pertobe team is no doubt trying its best, but they have many tasks, and retrieving dead birds is just one of them. Alexis is also trying her best, but she is a volunteer, with a job and kids.

Meanwhile, the avian botulism continues its deadly march in the warm, soupy conditions of Lake Pertobe that follow days of little rain, hot weather and a build-up of rich nutrients in the water.

While nature controls the first two conditions – heat and no rain – we can reduce the nutrients.

It is for this reason that Alexis is also pushing for an immediate council ban on feeding ducks bread within Lake Pertobe and elsewhere, as has been done by other councils.

Bread can be easily replaced by other duck-friendly foods, but so far the council is reluctant to issue such a ban, saying there is no proof that bread kills ducks.

Well, no, bread doesn’t kill ducks – although I am not sure how good processed bread is for them either – but it also doesn’t help Lake Pertobe to get healthy and adds to the conditions that cause avian botulism.

I suspect if the 100 dead birds found so far were all laid out on the Civic Green, we would all be justifiably horrified and asking the council to throw everything it can at the disaster.

For now, however, that burden sits largely on the shoulders of one or two people and the mortality rate grows higher.

(In the time it took me to write this story today, another nine birds were found by Alexis, including four that needed to be euthanised. The total is now 105 110.)

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