Carol Altmann – The Terrier

For those who couldn’t make it to the Fight4Lyndoch rally last Sunday, here are links to speeches and statements from:

Federal MP for Wannon, Dan Tehan;

Member for Western Region of Victoria, Bev McArthur;

Membership applicant Dr Michael McCluskey;

Former Lyndoch Living nurse Sandy Hockley;

Community advocate Diane Riordon.

Member for South-West Victoria Roma Britnell also gave a terrific speech, but unfortunately a hard copy was only in dot point form, so I have not included it here.

[A video of my speech is available on The Terrier Facebook page.]

I also wish to repeat the simple statement of support offered to the rally by former Lyndoch CEO Rhys Boyle.

Rhys guided Lyndoch for 20 years until his retirement in 2014:

“I support a re-evaluation of the facts to ensure that meaningful and informed decisions are being made that secure the future of Lyndoch,” he wrote.

More than 350 people turned out for the rally on Scoborio Reserve last Sunday, to stand in support of residents, their families and staff, and to hear for themselves the concerns around Lyndoch Living.

Those concerns come down to three main issues:

1. Declining residential care standards, staff shortages and staff resignations;

2.  The financial viability of Lyndoch and, in particular, the sustainability of the $22 medical clinic;

3. The cutting out of the community from Lyndoch, including the end of community/general memberships.

While we await to hear whether the Aged Care and Safety Commission will re-accredit Lyndoch in August, the community fight continues.

For while the commission can act on the first point – residential care – it doesn’t deal with the other two points.

It’s up to us, as the community which owns Lyndoch, to make sure Lyndoch remains transparent and accountable to the community.

After the enormous response to the rally on Sunday, despite the freezing morning, our resolve has only strengthened.

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

Tonight, names and faces.

I want to share with you the names and faces in this montage, who are now among an estimated 200 people whose faces you have not seen, but who have left Lyndoch Living in the past five years.

Each of them has a name, a face and have spent years caring for our elderly – they deserve to be more than just a number.

Numbers are numbing.

It’s the names and faces that capture what has been unfolding at Lyndoch since 2015, with a trickle of staff leaving turning into a stream and now into a flood.

The seven faces here are among those, in the past eight weeks, who have either resigned from Lyndoch or taken extended sick leave.

They have been part of the backbone of Lyndoch and, between them, have decades of aged care and nursing experience:

Director of Nursing Julie Baillie, who has worked for Lyndoch for more than 20 years.

Operational Manager of Workforce Development and Registered Nurse Roselie Morey, who has worked at Lyndoch for more than a decade.

Clinical Leader and Enrolled Nurse Scott Lucas, again another decade of service.

Nurse Unit Manager and Registered Nurse Anita Plowman, who has worked at Lyndoch for almost 30 years.

Registered nurse and former Nurse Unit Manager, Maxine Lane, 20 years of service at Lyndoch.

Registered nurse and former May Noonan Hostel Manager  Jeanette Edge, another 10 years of service.

Nurse Unit Manager and Registered Nurse Cath Porter, just over 10 years of service.

All gone and unlikely to return.

So many Lyndoch staff hung in there and hung in there, until it became intolerable.

The staff can’t say that publicly, but I can: it becomes intolerable.

The Terrier has been publishing stories about this for the past two years in the hope that the Lyndoch board and the local community would sense that something wasn’t right.

The community is working it out. The board, however, is not.

As I wrote on Sunday night, the Lyndoch board was sent an anonymous letter by a group of staff way back in April last year, warning them of the changing culture, the growing toxicity, and the consequences.

At the time of the letter , about 80 to 100 staff had gone.

Since then, according to my sources, another 80 to 100 have left. There will be more.

I have spoken to dozens of these people and they all tell disturbing stories which have never been fully aired and can’t be without legal protection.

But I can tell you this – very few of them wanted to leave their jobs.

Many thought they would have life-long careers at Lyndoch.

All of them, bar none, miss the residents they cared for.

Please think of each of these 200 staff next week, on Tuesday 26 October, when Lyndoch Living holds its Annual General Meeting.

None of them will be there, they won’t be named and they won’t be celebrated, which is why I want to honour each and every one of them now.

So to all the nurses, personal care workers, human resources managers, finance officers, payroll staff, cleaners, kitchen hands, chefs, lifestyle workers, gardeners, volunteer coordinators, pastoral care workers, maintenance workers, accountants, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, executive staff, directors of nursing, nurse unit managers, clinical leaders and anybody who I may have missed in the long list of the fallen – thankyou.

One day I would like to gather all of you on the Civic Green so Warrnambool can say thank you too.

This loss should be intolerable to us, as a community which loves Lyndoch, and entrusts our loved ones to its care.

And it is why we fight on.

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

I have learned that two staff – including a senior staff member – within the finance area of Lyndoch Living resigned today.

Another two resigned earlier this month.

In light of the legal precautions I must operate under when reporting on Lyndoch Living, you can make of that what you will.

But these resignations follow the former Acting Chief Financial Officer Allan Conway notifying the Lyndoch CEO Doreen Power of his serious concerns regarding the financial viability of a proposed $22 million medical clinic.

Mr Conway, who finished his 12-month contract in March, last night went public with those concerns.

Based on the information available to him, he does not support the medical clinic as proposed.

As a citizen, he holds fears for the future of Lyndoch Living.

And now the resignations from the inside keep coming.

When does this become a full blown crisis?

We have heard nothing from the board, who are chosen to represent the community that owns Lyndoch Living.

We have heard nothing from the chair, hairdresser and former Warrnambool City Councillor, Sue Cassidy.

We have heard nothing from the vice chair, the CEO of MPower Kerry Nelson.

We have heard nothing from the treasurer, Sinclair and Wilson accountant Kane Grant, who – surely – must be taking another, closer look at the numbers.

And we have heard nothing from any of the remaining five board members: Prof Rob Wallis, Andrew Paton, Ron Page, Suzanne Coulson and Lorraine Mielnik.

We have no independent members of Lyndoch who can speak on our behalf, as nobody outside of the board or Lyndoch has been accepted as a member in the past 18 months, and that includes our now Mayor Vicki Jellie AM.

In summary, the community has lost control of Lyndoch Living by stealth, aided and abetted by those who have blocked any involvement at every turn.

The consequences of that exclusion and obsequiousness are now, I fear, becoming clear.

I keep asking the questions in the public interest and below are the ones I sent last Friday lunchtime so the Lyndoch CEO and board knew what was going to be published Sunday night and had every opportunity to respond.

They have chosen not to.

In the face of this silence, I can only keep raising the alarm and hope that the community decides it has had enough and a group of community representatives demand the board hold an emergency meeting, with a full report back to the community they serve.

Email Friday 16 April, 1.25pm:

Dear Lyndoch Media Unit, Ms Power and board members,

I am writing to offer the opportunity for comment on the following matters for a piece I am preparing to publish this Sunday night.

I have received confirmation that the immediate former Chief Financial Officer of Lyndoch Living, Allan Conway, does not support the construction of the proposed Medical Clinic at Lyndoch Living and that Mr Conway has expressed his concerns directly to the CEO.

Further, in his capacity as a private resident of Warrnambool, Mr Conway has also expressed a broader concern over Lyndoch’s future viability.

Given the seriousness of a CFO raising such concerns and the governance responsibilities of Lyndoch Living, my questions to the CEO, to the board chair and to the board treasurer are as follows:

1. Has the CEO notified the board of Mr Conway’s concerns in writing?

2. Has the CEO notified the Department of Health and Human Services Victoria of Mr Conway’s concerns in writing?

3. Has Mr Conway been contacted by the CEO and the board in response to his concerns and to discuss them further?

4. What action/s does the CEO and board intend to take in response to Mr Conway’s concerns?

5. Given the limited surplus funds of Lyndoch Living, can the board outline where the funding is coming from for the $22 million Medical Clinic project?

6. Is the board comfortable with the level of risk associated with the Medical Clinic project?

7. Has a complete business plan been prepared and presented to the board for the Medical Clinic project?