Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Lyndoch Living’s multi-million-dollar health clinic was due to open next month: it’s still an empty shell.

This is the three-level, 6761sq/m, $22 million (at least) health centre being built right next door to Lyndoch on Hopkins Rd.

This project will either be a white knight, or a white elephant. It could kill Lyndoch.

The whole project is a huge gamble and it’s one the board decided to take about five years ago, without any public consultation, when for the first time in Lyndoch’s history, it borrowed a bucketload of money – about $12 million – to fund this grand plan.

On top of the $12 million, Lyndoch has redirected another $10 million from its own funds (not including residential bonds, which is illegal) that would otherwise have gone toward aged care.

So that’s at least $22 million which has to be recouped by Lyndoch, plus any cost blow outs, plus interest, plus taxes, plus maintenance and repairs, before this building turns a profit.

The building was supposed to be finished by next month, or August at the latest.

As we could see during the 5 June rally, it’s nowhere near it.

And so the huge floor space – equal to about four Olympic swimming pools – is nowhere near being ready to start taking tenants.

Which brings us to the first of many questions:

What is the new finish date?

What are the inevitable extra costs due to delays and the rising cost of materials?

And – most importantly – how many tenants has Lyndoch secured for the space?

The board was hoping for a full royal flush of up to 20 GPs, a dentist, a radiologist, acute care staff, pathology, allied health services, a café, a chemist and education/training facilities.

God knows where they’re all coming from.

Perhaps Lyndoch has a secret stash of healthcare professionals tucked away that the rest of regional Victoria can’t access.

The Warrnambool Medical Clinic, which Lyndoch bought three years ago, has 14 (full and part time) GPs but those contracts recently expired, and it’s not known how many have signed up for another three years.

I’ve asked Lyndoch CEO Doreen Power and chair Sue Cassidy for comment on all of these questions, but, once again, have had no reply.

I have also not had a reply about the directorships of the medical clinic company (Lyndoch Healthcare Pty Ltd).

The company has four directors: Ms Power; Unisex Cuts hairdresser Ms Cassidy; board member and Warrnambool City Council manager Andrew Paton; and, more recently, Sue Fleming who was previously with South West Healthcare.

How were these directors chosen? Were these positions advertised? How long are they directors for?

And the big question that nobody seems to be able to answer: will they be paid?

Given the clinic is a commercial venture, (not a charity or not-for-profit), you would assume the answer is YES!

The best I could get from Mr Paton, some months ago, was that he was not being paid “for now” and that any other suggestion was “hypothetical”.

So Lyndoch continues to pretend it can do what it likes, even when the future of Lyndoch is at stake, but we are getting mighty sick of the game, and so is the new Federal Government.

As MP Anika Wells tweeted last night: “Accountability and transparency will be at the centre of all aged care reform under the Albanese Government”.

It can’t happen soon enough.

The Terrier – Carol Altmann

Just when the whole saga of Lyndoch Living buying the Warrnambool Medical Clinic practice could not get any weirder, it has.

Lyndoch paid $1.3 million in 2019 for the practice, owned by well-respected GP Dr Phil Hall – but it did not buy the building.

The Liebig St building was sold on 29 July for upwards of $1.4m to an anonymous “local investor” who I can tonight reveal is none other than Dr Phil Hall.

(Land Title documents show Dr Hall was already a co-owner of the building, and bought out his partners.)

This means Dr Hall not only works for Lyndoch under contract, but he will be its landlord ($120k a year + GST) until the lease expires next July.

But that’s not the bomb.

The bomb is that the “local investor” (aka Dr Hall) reportedly wants to see the Liebig St building leased as a medical clinic after Lyndoch leaves.

“Their intent is that it remain a medical clinic beyond the current tenant’s stay,” real estate agent Danny Harris told the local paper at the time of the sale.

A medical clinic!

It’s this prospect that exposes a gaping hole in Lyndoch paying $1.3 million to buy the medical practice in the first place.

What did it actually buy?

It bought “goodwill”, which means doctors on contract and the patients who follow them.

But it appears the deal failed to include a crucial clause that the former owner of that practice could not lease a building to a competitor.

Oops.

This failure exposes the fragility of Lyndoch’s decision to wade into medical practice.

As we know, Lyndoch is spending $22 million on a brand new, three-storey, 6761 sq/m complex on Hopkins Rd that it hopes to fill with 20 GPs and other health workers.

Those 20 GPs are the backbone of the whole clinic plan.

They will each pay a substantial fee – around 35 per cent of their annual earnings – in return for a space in the clinic and support services.

But there are no guarantees the GPs will come, or will stay, because GPs are contractors: they decide where they will work, and for how long.

If a GP working for Lyndoch/Warrnambool Medical Clinic wants to leave, they simply give 30 days notice.

My sources tell me the contracts signed between the GPs and Lyndoch expire next April.

This means all bets are off until new contracts are negotiated.

As of next April, Lyndoch could – in a worst case scenario – find itself with less doctors, not more.

Lyndoch was already in a vulnerable position, but that position will become a razor edge if Dr Hall follows through on his reported plan and offers his prime slice of real estate to a new medical clinic.

Who will take up the offer, and how many GPs from Lyndoch/WMC and elsewhere (will Dr Hall be among them?) will join its ranks?

I asked Dr Hall for a comment for this piece, but he declined.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Lyndoch Living today held a ceremony to celebrate the turning of the first sod on its $22 million medical clinic on Hopkins Rd.

Red rope and gold pillars, like those you see outside nightclubs, marked the VIP area on the razed Tomlinson site that remains littered with a pile of unanswered questions, like how will this benefit the residents?

There didn’t appear to be any VIPs other than the board who turned up today, and there was no sign of any residents.

Neither was there any care staff who, 100m away from the sod, are still battling with an unreliable nurse call system.

These staff must wonder, surely, how Lyndoch can afford to spend $22 million on a medical clinic while such basics as the call system remain dodgy.

This is the mobile system that connects care workers as they move from wing to wing and floor to floor.

It’s the spinal cord of the communications system and yet is not 100 per cent reliable and plagued by black spots.

This means calls between care staff can drop out, which, in an emergency, is a bit like us dialing 000 and nobody answers.

Lyndoch has known about these system failings for more than a year and yet, for whatever reason, it still hasn’t been fixed.

In that time, there has been at least one serious incident involving an emergency with a resident and the call system breaking down.

How such lop-sided priorities within Lyndoch remain acceptable is beyond me and I can only ponder, as the board lines up for photo opportunities with a shiny spade, if they are aware.

They are now.

[Once again, I am sorry, but I have comments turned off on this post until a current legal action involving Lyndoch is sorted.]

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

A short post tonight:

I recently learned that the $24 million medical clinic being built at Lyndoch Living did not go to tender.

I asked Lyndoch for comment on why it did not put the biggest project in its 69 year history out to tender so it could comfortably know it had received the best possible value for money.

There was no response from the Lyndoch chair.

There was no response from the Lyndoch media unit on behalf of the executive.

More than 1000 people are now asking questions about the purpose and financial viability of this medical clinic project, but no answers have been forthcoming.

You know, I used to fear that the Warrnambool community would lose control of Lyndoch, but it already has.

It lost control, without knowing it, almost three years ago to the day – 31 July 2018 – when the board and three other members of Lyndoch voted to tear up the old association rules that had been in place for decades, and become a company.

Lyndoch Living Inc became Lyndoch Living Limited.

It has not advertised publicly to fill a board vacancy since.

Under the new rules, it doesn’t have to. It could, but it chooses not to.

It has also not accepted a single membership application from the general public: even the current Mayor Vicki Jellie AM was rejected.

It has not publicly advertised its AGM since because under the new rules, it doesn’t have to. It could, but it chooses not to.

Snap, just like that, Warrnambool lost control of its aged care home and the right to have any meaningful input into its future.

The new constitution that governs Lyndoch Living Limited is being used to keep you quiet: we are the constrained without consent.

That’s all you need to know.

[I have turned comments off on this post, because Lyndoch Living is sending me lawyers’ letters; this time it’s not about my words, but yours. Lyndoch has access to ongoing and considerable funds to launch legal claims on behalf of individuals. I don’t. Given this, I am turning off all comments on Lyndoch pieces for the time being.]

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

The change in ownership for the Warrnambool Medical Clinic has seen a huge change in staff since it was sold for $1.3m to Lyndoch Living in 2019.

It’s a little over 12 months since the clinic lost its practice manager – its chief administrator – who resigned after a decade in the job.

I have since learned that around 20 more staff have left the practice since then, including two GPs who resigned in recent weeks.

Two other GPs, you may recall, resigned immediately after Lyndoch Living took control of the practice in April 2019.

According to my sources, there is now only one nurse at the practice who has been there longer than 12 months, and another eight have resigned.

At least six reception staff have also left.

Not all the positions have been replaced.

What has happened, though, is a mirror of what has happened at Lyndoch Living itself these past five years: a balloon in the number of people with special titles.

Where there was once a single practice manager, there is now:

a Project Director Integrated Primary Health;

a Project co-ordinator Primary Care;

an Operations Manager Primary Health Care and;

a Practice nurse Clinical Lead.

It’s worth remembering that Lyndoch Living paid $1.3 million in 2019 to buy the “goodwill” of Warrnambool Medical Clinic, which means GPs on contract, staff and patient lists.

It didn’t pay $1.3 million for the actual building on the corner of Liebig St and Raglan Parade.

Given the high turnover of staff since then, and anecdotal evidence of patients transferring elsewhere, I can only ponder how much of that $1.3 million worth of “goodwill” still remains intact.

As for the building itself, the Standard’s Jackson Graham is reporting today that it is up for sale at an expected price of $1.2m to $1.3m.

According to the report, Lyndoch Living has a lease on the building until June 2022.

That is a mere 12 months away.

This might explain why Lyndoch is barrelling ahead with plans to build its new $24 million, 3000 sq/m medical clinic on Hopkins Rd, despite concerns around the financial viability of the project.

As we know, the Lyndoch board is continuing to refuse to explain how the clinic will be funded, how many tenants are locked in, and – most importantly – how much money it will create for the care of elderly residents.

At a cost of around $24 m, this project is even bigger than the new Warrnambool library at $20m but, unlike that project, it doesn’t have one cent of government funding.

The strange thing is, for less than $3 million, Lyndoch could have bought the Warrnambool Medical Clinic building AND all of its goodwill and maybe spent another couple of million bucks refurbishing what is a prime piece of real estate.

A $5 million investment sounds a lot less risky than $24 million.

As it is, that prime piece of real estate is now up for grabs and Danny Harris, the selling agent, says – wait for it – it would make an ideal medical clinic.