This photo of senior Lyndoch Living staff was taken on the front lawns of Lyndoch in 2017.

Of those in the line-up, only two faces remain.

Three, if I count the CEO, pictured in the centre.

The turnover from those in this photo includes four Nurse Unit Managers, an Occupational Therapist, the Chief Financial Officer, the Director of Hotel Services, the Head of kitchen services, the Human Resources Co-ordinator, the Director of Nursing, and the Director of People and Resilience which is a title dripping with irony, because resilience doesn’t come into this.

They are all gone, regardless of their “resilience”.

Last week I posted a photo of seven experienced clinical staff who have left in the past eight weeks, but this photo dips into an exodus that has been from right across Lyndoch.

Some of those in this photo had only just started in their roles, but were gone within three years.

Why?

We have not been told why.

I have written many times now about the loss of up to 200 staff from Lyndoch Living in the past five years and still nobody has told us why.

The board, it seems, considers such a loss quite acceptable, normal even.

It is this normalisation of the abnormal which has got me thinking – was this staff purge part of the grand plan all along?

Was the idea to get rid of anyone who complained, cost too much, knew too much or who simply didn’t apply the “Lyndoch Way” of saying “yes!” even when their hearts told them to say “no, no, no”?

Maybe it has been a part of Lyndoch’s grand masterplan that, let’s face it, very few people knew much about and still don’t.

The community owns Lyndoch, but in the past five years it has been kept completely in the dark.

Who knew that Tomlinson Wing would be demolished to make way for a $22m medical clinic?

Who knew that Lyndoch had, in 2018, quietly become a Company Limited by Guarantee that would be used to cut the community out?

And who knew that so many hard-working, committed local people who worked at Lyndoch would be forced to leave in a purge that still rolls on?

The impact of these losses is already being felt and my fear is that the full impact is yet to come.

Again, for the sake of the elderly and vulnerable residents, I hope I am wrong.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

A senior executive at Lyndoch Living resigned today amid mounting concerns over a $22 million medical clinic that will be built by next year.

Dr Ed Rhode (BScMaths, BCompSc, MSME, PhD) was Lyndoch’s Director of Technology, Strategy & Transformation, and a key figure in the Lyndoch executive team.

Dr Rhode had been with Lyndoch for less than two years, despite – according to well-placed sources – being head-hunted for the position from northern Victoria.

His partner, also a Lyndoch employee, has also resigned today.

Prior to Lyndoch, Dr Rhode’s work history included a senior position in the health industry in the Goulburn Valley, where he worked professionally with the now CEO of Lyndoch Living, Doreen Power, in her former role as CEO of Seymour Health.

It’s not clear precisely why Dr Rhode resigned and I have not been able to contact him for comment tonight.

His resignation, however, comes a week after the resignation of two staff within the finance area of Lyndoch, including a senior staff member.

It also comes nine days after Lyndoch’s former Acting Chief Financial Officer Allan Conway went public (via The Terrier) with serious concerns over the proposed $22 million medical clinic and broader fears about Lyndoch’s viability.

Dr Rhode’s resignation also comes a month after that of board member, Percy Eccles, who had been on the Lyndoch board for almost 10 years.

In light of the legal precautions I must operate under when reporting on Lyndoch Living, I am reluctant to join the dots.

I – again – can only hope the board which, to date, has been stony silent, is across all of these resignations, that it is asking why senior people are leaving, that it has followed up with Mr Conway and his concerns, and that it is 100 per cent confident with the medical clinic project as it stands.

The board are the community’s eyes and ears for what is a community owned asset.

To wipe all of this away as being “operational” doesn’t cut it.

Just ask the former Warrnambool City councillors.