Carol Altmann – The Terrier

South West Coast MP Roma Britnell is taking action in response to a leaked copy of an explosive Lyndoch Living staff survey.

Could this be the moment when someone with power grabs the wheel and steers HMAS Lyndoch away from the iceberg?

Many of the long-suffering staff – past and present – will hope so.

Before I give you a snippet of the damning survey responses (brace yourself), I asked Ms Britnell if she had received a copy and what she intended to do about it.

She could have said, “sorry, Terrier-blogger-journo-social-media-brat, no comment”.

But, in a statement to The Terrier today, Ms Britnell said she was concerned, and that the survey mirrored issues raised by a number of people she had spoken to over recent months.

Ms Britnell said she will now meet with the Lyndoch board and CEO to ask what is being done. This is significant, because MPs don’t wade into troubled waters easily.

I can also confirm that the federal Member for Wannon, Dan Tehan, has asked the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission to investigate concerns raised earlier by constituents.

This, as we know, comes on top of growing unease among staff at the Warrnambool Medical Clinic, who – I suspect – are starting to understand why two GPs quit last April when that clinic was sold to Lyndoch Living for a total of $1.6m.

The WMC Practice Manager has also resigned and leaves in two weeks. (“Ahoy me hearties, iceberg ahead!”)

First, here is what Ms Britnell had to say in full:

“I received a copy of the report via email on Tuesday morning and had some concerns about its contents.

I am now seeking a meeting with the Chief Executive Officer of Lyndoch Living and Members of the Board to discuss these matters.

I also note I have been approached by several different people over the past few months who have shared with me concerns which relate to the matters contained in the report.

Lyndoch is a vital institution in our community and it’s really important it retains its long held reputation as a high quality home for the elderly and a great place to work.

That’s why it’s important concerns raised by staff or residents are appropriately addressed – that is information I will be seeking from the CEO and Board. “

 

One wonders how much longer the Lyndoch board can continue to deny the obvious, which leapt off the page in the leaked confidential staff survey.

Lyndoch received the survey results in January, they went to the board in February, but still it has done nothing to address the damning assessment of the CEO’s leadership that was contained within.

Here is a snippet which I believe people need to see in the public interest, not just the watered down version as reported in the Warrnambool Standard:

“A small sample of around 10-15 respondents stated that the CEO’s culture of intimidation, manipulation and bullying greatly impacted their safety, health and wellbeing. They said they witnessed her bullying others and making decisions in regard to her own self-interests and not the organisation as a whole.”

Read that again. Up to 15 people is not a “small sample”. That is shocking, especially when you consider the Lyndoch corporate area has about 40 staff in total.

For even one person to claim to be enduring the “CEO’s culture of intimidation, manipulation and bullying” is one too many.

To have 10 to 15 warm-blooded, real people feeling that their “safety, health and well-being” is suffering, is disgraceful.

And what has been done in response?

Instead of leaping into action, Lyndoch hired a consultant – yes, another big fat fee on the public dime – to offer the board a counter assessment of the results:

“Look, over there! Over there! Nothing to see here!”

In LyndochLand™ , it’s the fault of the senior staff, the older staff, the kitchen staff, the person who takes out the bins on a Friday, the woman walking past the Lyndoch Milk Bar, the person who posted a nasty comment on Facebook, a pesky little journalist….anybody, anybody, but the person at the very top of the tree.

Is that a cover up, pure spin or clever public relations?

I don’t know, but what I do know is that the board – at the end of the day – will wear any consequences of not acting decisively.

The board are the people who are at risk of serious reputational damage. In light of these survey results, they can no longer say that they didn’t know.

And it is poor Lyndoch, owned and loved by the community for 60 years, that could face both reputational and significant financial damage.

Compensation payouts of hundreds of thousands of dollars are being awarded to individuals who have suffered workplace bullying and harassment. This is not a game.

On top of that, consider this: if the iconic Warrnambool Medical Clinic was to fall apart because of similar issues filtering into its workplace, then there is no more “goodwill” and Lyndoch will have paid close to $2 million* for fresh air.

All this before even a sod is turned on the new $12 million medical centre to be built at Lyndoch to house the WMC and up to 20 GPs.

The pushback against those who dare to speak up and out is enormous – it’s all just a “social media” beat up – and meanwhile the HMAS Lyndoch lurches ever closer toward the iceberg.

At least now Ms Britnell and Mr Tehan are helping to lower the lifeboats.

There is a Lyndoch board meeting next Tuesday: we can only hope that the board leaps in and starts paddling.

*The $2 million includes $1.6m for the WMC and $300,000 for the Health Spot, plus purchase fees and charges.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Remember that $1.3 million of public money paid by Lyndoch Living for the  “goodwill” of the Warrnambool Medical Clinic?

Well, the Practice Manager – the chief administrator – has resigned, giving just four weeks’ notice after what I understand is more than a decade in the job.

A big slice of that goodwill is going and is not easily replaced.

This latest resignation also follows two experienced GPs who resigned on the spot last April when Lyndoch laid out its plans as the new owners of the clinic and, I have a hunch, there will be more departures to come.

Nursing and administration staff have also left under circumstances which have been raising questions. (Does this sound familiar to you? If you are long-term readers of The Terrier, it should.)

The alarm bells have been ringing and now the house of Lyndoch is burning and I am not sure how much more the board can just keep explaining it all away.

Smoke? Smoke? That’s not smoke, it’s just a little sea mist rolling up from the mouth of the Hopkins River.

Until this latest bombshell, I had intended to tell you tonight about the official rejections of the latest people who applied to become members of Lyndoch, so I will squeeze this in too.

They include a recipient of the Order of Australia medal, Vicki Jellie, a former south-west MP Adam Kempton (who was once a Lyndoch board member), a former business journalist Steve Hynes (who has applied twice), and a bloke by the name of  Jim Burke, a familiar name on The Terrier Facebook page, who has a tidy little resume which I will repeat here:

“Jim served in the Royal Australian Navy for 24 years in communications and intelligence roles.

On retirement from the Navy, he was employed by Defence Signals Directorate (now Australian Signals Directorate) for 14 years before working for the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security as a Senior Investigation Officer until his retirement in 2009.

His final roles in ASD and IGIS were compliance and governance related.”

Yet Jim – and Vicki and Adam and Steve and Lynn and all the others – received a  “thanks but no thanks” letter from Lyndoch in the mail.

This is all the evidence we need, surely, to say the membership process has become corrupted by something or someone and is failing to uphold the spirit on which Lyndoch was founded.

Let’s make no bones about it, this is all about keeping power and control.

Because under the Lyndoch constitution, members have voting rights. They can call meetings. They can ask questions at the AGM about things like paying $1.3m for the Warrnambool Medical Clinic. They might even – gasp – try to become a board member.

And Lyndochland™ can’t have that.

But here’s the really shocking bit: the people who are choosing to exclude the community, are from our community, and that is what surprises and hurts locals the most.

The current board is prepared to go along with this charade. Why?

Because it is an absolute charade and it will come crashing down eventually, just as it has when this sort of exclusion and manipulation has been tried elsewhere.

In a small community, you can only get away with it for so long.

I hope the Lyndoch board remembers this: they are the ones who will be held accountable, they live here, they are part of us, and one day they will be asked to explain why those who worried for Lyndoch, who had no motive other than care and concern, were turned away.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

One of the many concerns swirling around Lyndoch Living is whether its plan to build a multi-million dollar medical clinic will send the place broke.

It is important to understand that when Lyndoch bought the Warrnambool Medical Clinic and the Health Spot for a total of $1.6 million, it did not buy any physical buildings.

Lyndoch does not own the WMC building on the corner of Liebig St and Raglan Parade: that building remains privately owned by a handful of people.

The $1.3 million cost for the WMC was almost made up entirely of buying the goodwill, which basically means paying a lot of money on the hope that patients will still keep coming to that clinic.

Indeed the cost of the WMC assets was only $153,000, presumably made up of some furniture, some tissue boxes and maybe a couple of boxes of sterile gloves in assorted colours thrown in for good measure.

As part of this goodwill, the doctors sign a contract that they will hang around for a certain time and I believe these contracts are for two years.

Some doctors with the WMC wanted no part of the sale to Lyndoch, so they left early last year.

(Doctors are contractors, so, just like a plumber or a carpenter, they can be contracted to work for a certain time, but they can also leave at the end of that time. This means GPs are in control of their destiny with a clinic, not the other way around.)

And here is the crunch: while Lyndoch has paid $1.6 million to buy two medical clinics, it is now going to spend many more millions – we don’t know how many – to build a brand new clinic at Lyndoch, on Hopkins Rd.

This clinic, according to Lyndoch’s own words, will include GPs, allied health services, radiology services and maybe even a dentist.

Holymaloolah. Talk about moving away from your core business of looking after the old folks!

And this is why so many people are nervous. There are too many unanswered questions and too many examples of regional medical clinics that have gone belly up in the past 18 months, including the Tristar Medical Group in Mildura, Traralgon and Wangaratta; the Gunnedah Mackellar Rural Health Service, and, closer to home, the Ballan District Health and Care which has a model very similar to what Lyndoch is planning and which last year received a State Government bail out.

Google them all for a sobering read on risk.

If a medical clinic is such a great move for Lyndoch, why can’t we see the business plan?

Does Warrnambool need a brand new medical clinic at Lyndoch? Is there the demand?

Will the elderly residents be forced to use the GPs – and other services – at the clinic? Will the Lyndoch staff?

How much will it cost? Where is all the money coming from? What are the expected returns?

So, so many questions and still no answers, yet the wrecking ball – which will see Tomlinson wing demolished to make way for this clinic – is just a few months away from swinging.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

In the past two years, Lyndoch Living spent more on lawyers, consultants and accountants than it did on food for residents.

In 2018 and 2019, Lyndoch shelled out an astonishing $2.318 million on accountants, lawyers and consultants, while it spent $2.194 million on food supplies.

In 2018, the gap between the two was especially stark, with less than $1 million spent on food supplies – $994,068 – compared with $1.238 million on accountants, lawyers and consultants.

Chew on that for a moment and I suspect you will feel the same sense of indigestion that came over me.

These unpalatable facts are among the many that fall out when you take a close look at Lyndoch’s financial statements – and a lot of terriers are now taking a good, hard look at the figures, both old and new.

This is how we know that in 2013 the food bill was $992,516, which is not that far off the $994,068 that was spent five years’ later.

Did I miss something? Has the cost of groceries gone down?

I can tell you that what residents pay to live in a nursing home has certainly not gone down nor stayed the same for the past five years.

If you are going to cut costs, surely as an aged care home you don’t start with the food bill?

Judging by the 2019 financials, there is plenty of fat to trim elsewhere, starting with administration costs and the ever-growing number of staff  in the corporate area (59 and counting).

Not surprisingly, the cost of food vs lawyers/consultants/auditors was not mentioned at the Lyndoch Living annual general meeting last October and we can only make the comparison now because of two things:

The full figures have finally been released via the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission, and, for the first time, legal fees and consultants’ fees have been published in the audited statements.

Speaking of auditors, wow, has that bill shot through the roof.

Last year, Lyndoch’s auditing costs tripled from $13,950 in 2018 to $48,500 in 2019, which is five times what Lyndoch paid for auditing in 2013 ($9800).

Lyndoch changed auditors from local firm McLaren Hunt (which used to be Coffey Hunt) and replaced them with RSM Australia.

Perhaps a stack more number crunching needed to be done because Lyndoch decided to become a company limited by guarantee, buy two medical centres and also the May Noonan nursing home in Terang (I will write more about the medical centres soon).

But even the auditors were paid small beans compared with the $2.25 million spent on lawyers and consultants in the past two years.

$2.25 million.

Oh my goodness, I really am in the wrong business.

This $2.25 million would include hiring consultants for the $100 million masterplan and to write the (secret) business plan for the new medical centre that Lyndoch intends to start building soon, even though it’s still not sure how much money it needs to borrow to pay for it.

The lawyers, I assume, would also have been hired to guide the masterplan, to set up Lyndoch Healthcare Pty Ltd, and to oversee how Lyndoch now operates as a company limited by guarantee.

There are also the less obvious fees, such as the solicitor “retained” to provide advice to the company secretary, who doesn’t have legal or accounting qualifications.

All of this – millions of dollars in consulting, legal, accounting and administration bills – is such a long, long way from where Lyndoch started as a much-loved, community owned facility for our aged to see out their final years in comfort.

Back in the beginning, people donated their time and their own money to make sure Lyndoch found its feet and this is why there remains such a strong, emotional connection between Warrnambool and our iconic aged care home.

The board needs to get that.

Lyndoch has to grow and keep up with the times, we all get that, but how it is growing – and at what cost – remains at the heart of this investigation and we will keep going.

More soon.

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Carol “Alice” Altmann – The Terrier

Take my hand and follow me into the strange, alternative world of Lyndoch Living Wonderland, a sparkly world with a lovely colour palette, and where a deficit is “a good result”.

Lyndoch has just posted its fourth deficit in the past five years, but according to those who sit at the big table, there is no need for concern.

(Caterpillar: I don’t know what they’re smokin’ over there in the boardroom, but I want to try it!)

What’s more, Lyndoch CEO Doreen Power, who was appointed in 2015, has announced – without so much as a twitch of an eye – that we can expect our largest, fully-booked aged care home to run at a loss for another two to three years.

This means that by 2022, Lyndoch will have run at a loss for six or possibly seven years out of the past eight.

(Cheshire Cat: keep smiling everyone, keep smiling! Oh blast, here comes Alice with her practical facts…)

In 2014, the year former CEO Rhys Boyle retired, Lyndoch was comfortably in the black and recorded a $901,214 surplus, which came on top of surpluses in 2012 and 2013.

Here are the figures since:

2015: $208,707 deficit

2016: $130,037 deficit

2017: $846,563 surplus

2018: $1,573,98 deficit 

2019: $398,356 deficit

I think this tells us pretty clearly that Lyndoch is living beyond its means – each year it is spending more than it makes – but somehow an almost $400,000 loss like last year is a “good result”.

No it isn’t. It’s a bad result.

(Mad Hatter: Oh Alice, anyone knows a good result is better than a bad result which is better than a worserer result. Pour me some tea!)

If we push aside the spin and boil it down to the absolute basics, Lyndoch has one important job to do, which is to care for our elderly and infirm, for which it receives money from the Federal Government, the State Government, live-in residents, clients and its own investments.

From all these things, Lyndoch last year received a total income of $38.9 million.

It spent $39.3 million, in other words, it went over its budget…again.

On top of this, Lyndoch also confirmed a slightly awkward piece of news, which The Terrier flagged back in October, which was $11.3 million was wiped off its assets after certain, unnamed buildings were re-valued using a different method that, from what I can see, used market prices.

This is like owning a house you thought was worth $12 million, only to be told it is actually worth $1 million.

(Mad Hatter: Oh who cares? $1 million, $12 million, it’s only on paper! Tear it up and start over! More tea?)

Have a big sip of whatever you are drinking, because now we wade deeper into the forest of figures in search of the bottom line.

In 2015, Lyndoch had total assets of $96.5 million – this is whole shopping cart: the properties, the cash, the residential bond money, the investments, the cups and saucers, cutlery and cars.

At the same time, it had expenses, or liabilities, of $27.7 million, leaving it with a bottom line of $68.7 million.

By 2019, Lyndoch had total assets of $98.9 million – (White Rabbit: clap, clap, wonderful, magnificent! Well done!) – but….it also had liabilities of $47.7 million, leaving it with a bottom line of $51.1m.

This means Lyndoch’s overall bottom line has fallen from $68.7 million to $51.1 million in just five years.

(White Rabbit: Oh. But the cash, dear Alice, what about the cash?)

Lyndoch has plenty of cash: $48.7 million in cash and other investments, except they can’t touch most of it – around $30 million from my reckoning – because it is tied up in residents’ bonds.

(White Rabbit: So I can’t spend it on a shiny new pocket watch? Damn.)

As we know, other things have changed dramatically in the past five years too, including just about every member of the executive team being replaced, from the Director of Nursing, to the Chief Financial Officer, to the Human Resources head, with more than 80 staff having gone elsewhere.

I have since been told by a strong source that my figures are wrong and it’s closer to 120 staff, but I can’t verify this.

(Queen of Hearts: At last, at last, my walk on part…Off with their heads, I say! Off with their heads! Strike up the trumpets!)

No wonder the board wasn’t keen to trumpet all of this news at the annual general meeting last October, where written questions from the public were ignored, because they were not members of Lyndoch.

Anyone who has since tried to become a member has been rejected.

(Queen of Hearts: Close the gates! Don’t let the rabble in!)

And the crazy making thing is that despite these worrying figures, Lyndoch is not tightening its belt, but going on a spending spree: a $100 million masterplan that includes buying two medical clinics for a cost of $1.6 million, including $1.3 million for the Warrnambool Medical Clinic, so it can move them to a medical clinic that it will build.

(Mad Hatter: And don’t forget the horse race! We want to go to the races, so we bought the race! Giddyup Dormouse!)

I am worried, dear citizens, that we who own Lyndoch are being dragged deep into this wonderland and we won’t be able to find our way out, which is why we have to keep going.

(Caterpillar: Ah, chill baby and pass me the pipe.)

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