Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Righto, off we go. Let’s pick up right where we left off, because after all I am like a dog with a bone, and so tonight I am gnawing on the many things that we still need to know about Lyndoch Living – our community owned aged care home.

If any readers hoped that I might be moving on to another issue, look away now, because I am not finished with what has been a three-year investigation into how Lyndoch has changed, who has been involved, why and whether we can soon rest easy.

I am seeing this through – it will remain the focus of The Terrier for now – and I hope you will too.

Ah but hang on, there is one issue we need to address first and that is Covid.

Covidcovidcovidcovid.

Covid, as we know, is still disrupting aged care homes right across Australia with lockdowns, Covid outbreaks, visitation restrictions, and worsening staff shortages, and all of this is having a terrible impact on those who are isolated from their loved ones.

I am sure we all understand this, but Covid is not and cannot be a reason to stop asking the hard questions of Lyndoch that still remain unanswered.

In my view, it is even more of a reason to probe deeply into our publicly owned aged care home, because the local community are the custodians and caretakers of Lyndoch and we want to know that it is operating at the very highest standards of care, trust, accountability and transparency.

This has been the battle for the past three years – longer for those who work there – and it is not over yet.

Let’s begin with the AGM that was held just over a month ago.

At that time, Chair Susan Cassidy said during the livestream that any questions from members would be taken on notice.

Were there any questions from members taken on notice? If so, what were these questions?

What were the answers?

I asked Ms Cassidy this in an email last week and, so far, have not had a reply.

If there were no questions from members, then Lyndoch – a $100 million publicly owned organisation – held its AGM without a SINGLE question being asked.

Not one.

Perhaps I am wrong and Ms Cassidy will be in touch shortly with the list of rigorous questions and answers.

Such as:

Why has Lyndoch’s equity (assets minus liabilities) progressively fallen by a staggering $28 million in just six years?

In 2015, Lyndoch’s net assets were $69 million.

Last year, they had fallen to $41 million.

We will learn more about the Lyndoch figures at the end of this month, when it reports to the charities commission, so I will write more fulsomely on this then.

For now, however, we know a big slice of Lyndoch’s spending goes on staff costs and that it has also borrowed big time to fund its $22m medical clinic.

So, how is staffing? What are the bed numbers and staff ratios?

We see shift shortages being leaked to this page all the time – so why, in this climate, is Lyndoch bleeding so many experienced staff? Has the board asked questions and read the exit interviews?

And is it correct that Lyndoch is poised to hire a bunch of nurses trained overseas in order to fill the gaps?

What about the accreditation of Lyndoch due next month – is it on track to address all of the failings exposed by the aged care commission and pass with flying colours?

My sense is that Covid will see this accreditation delayed, but that doesn’t change the need for reassurance that Lyndoch has addressed ALL of the failings in Warrnambool and at its May Noonan Hostel in Terang.

And how is the $22 million medical clinic shaping up? Is it on budget?

And are all the GPs who are currently contracted with Lyndoch until April intending to stay on or will they follow Dr Phil Hall if, as reported, he re-opens a clinic at the existing Liebig St site?

What if the GPs don’t renew their contracts? How will Lyndoch fill its ginormous, three-level medical centre and not create another Sam’s Warehouse scenario?

Another whole pile of questions also come from the surprise announcement at the AGM that consultant Robert Lane had been hired to sort out how board appointments, and I assume general membership to Lyndoch, will be handled from here.

Mr Lane said there would be an advisory committee, chaired by himself and made up of two current board members (Mr Kane Grant and Ms Lorraine Mielnik), who would assist the board with its decisions on memberships which, to date, have made no sense to anyone.

I will also be learning more about that whole process this week, so stay tuned.

So many questions…I hope you are well rested and ready.

On we go.

[Thanks for reading, and if you would like to buy Jock a juicy bone as a thankyou, you can visit the Tip Jar here: https://tinyurl.com/yckzankb]

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

UPDATE:  Another one down. The third and final clinical leader in the Lyndoch Living hostel area is now on sick leave.

This means there are no clinical leaders left in an area of up to 128 residents.

All three leaders have gone on sick or stress leave in the past eight weeks and between them have 30 years, another 30 years and more than 10 years experience.

They are unlikely to return under the current management.

This part of Lyndoch, which includes the new $13m Swinton Wing and Riverside, now has nobody formally in the role of clinical leader – skilled nurses who work closely with the Nurse Unit Managers on administering medication, and implementing and monitoring the care plan for each resident.

They also work closely with the Personal Care Workers.

Now they are all gone. 

The two experienced Nurse Unit Managers for this area are also on extended leave.

In the space of two months, this area has lost all of its leaders and mentors who have built strong relationships with each other and with the residents, who miss them and hope they are okay.

I know this, because people contact me.

So far, Lyndoch’s answer to this growing crisis is to expect other nursing staff to fill the gaps: shuffle the chairs, move the chess pieces, switch and swap, and plug holes wherever they appear.

Lyndoch called a pep-talk meeting of all the PCWs on Monday which, from all accounts, only underscored how blinded senior management are to the looming crisis.

Some staff walked out not long after the pep talk started and well before it ended: they had heard enough.

They were hoping for a plan, some reassurance that more hands on deck were coming, but they were apparently given no such comfort.

Instead, according to my ever-trusty sources, they were told if Lyndoch was to have an accreditation assessment right now, it would fail.

As we know, Lyndoch is already under scrutiny from the national aged care watchdog and failed three out of four key standards, which must be addressed if it is to be re-accredited in February next year.

Re-accrediation was due in August this year, but due to Covid was delayed by six months – the Lyndoch hierarchy must be breathing a huge sigh of relief for the extension.

And yet none of this, not a word, merits any public explanation from Lyndoch Living as to what is going on, why and what is being done to address it.

The staff exodus and the impact does not warrant a peep from the Lyndoch board.

It has also not stirred any interrogation by local mainstream media: not a single question has been asked or appeared in any stories that I have seen.

And so it just rolls on and I find that shocking.

One of the few to speak up is the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation which last week sent a string of questions to the Lyndoch Acting Director of Nursing that it has asked to be answered by tomorrow.

It is a glimmer of hope for at least some answers and accountability.

We shall see.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

There is still no sign of the Lyndoch Living AGM, but the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation is now demanding answers around staff shortages, poor staff morale, compromised resident care, a lack of leadership and the increased risk of a clinical incident for which staff could be blamed.

In other words, the union has identified all of the critical issues that Lyndoch nursing and care staff have been trying to raise these past 18 months and which many Lyndoch staff believe are now at breaking point.

This is not scare mongering.

This is a warning to Lyndoch and its board that this is no longer a situation that can be ignored or fixed by shuffling the deck chairs.

The plain fact is you cannot lose at least a dozen of your most experienced clinical and nursing staff in a couple of months and not expect an impact.

My long held fear is that it will take a “clinical incident” to bring this to a head – it will take someone’s loved one to be the victim of what is unfolding before there is an intervention. This is my genuine fear and it is one that is now shared by the ANMF.

In a two-page letter sent last Friday, the union has given Lyndoch until the end of this week to respond to its questions, which are outlined in the attached photos, including resident numbers, staff numbers, rosters and what is being done to address the chronic shortfalls.

I am so relieved to see the nurses union now stepping in, together with work behind the scenes from MPs, residents’ families, hundreds of community members, Lyndoch staff, and others who are no longer prepared to let this go on, unchallenged.

The board and the Lyndoch executive may choose silence or spin, but the community is not going to stand for it.

As a wise person reminded me the other day, the standard you walk past is the standard you accept. When it comes to our elderly and vulnerable residents, none of us – surely – can walk past. On we press.

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.