Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Santoro, the Minister for Ageing. Has the minister seen reports in the Adelaide Advertiser today that describe a four-year study of Adelaide nursing homes where academics witnessed widespread abuse such as a resident being forced to sit in a urine-soaked bed and nightgown while eating her breakfast, residents being forced to sit in their own faeces for long periods of time and requests by people to go to the toilet being rejected on the basis that it is not their toilet time? Is it true that all Adelaide nursing homes are accredited and have been so for the entire four-year period of the study? Is it also the case that only one Adelaide nursing home, Barton Vale, which failed 27 of the 44 accreditation criteria, was sanctioned during the period of the study? Can the minister now explain how it is possible for abuses of this nature to occur under the government’s aged-care system?