Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader (Tasmania)) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on this report. We are short of time, but I want to concur with Senator Siewert's comments. The inquiry was established, as we've heard, to review the effectiveness of the aged-care framework, to ensure older Australians receive the quality care they deserve and to protect them from the abuse that occurred at the Makk and McLeay wards at the Oakden Older Persons Mental Health Service in South Australia.

The committee was presented with overwhelming, heartbreaking evidence from family members about the abuse, the neglect and the unprofessional care standards that were applied. Among the things that were raised with us during the evidence were residents being left in soiled clothing for long periods of time and not washed, patients not being fed properly, staff force-feeding sleeping patients, patients being restrained for significant portions of the day, unexplained falls and bruises, and patients being overmedicated.

As Senator Siewert said, if we turn to the situation of the Spriggs family, medication mismanagement was common, and many family members reported oversedation and overdoses. In one instance recounted to the committee, an overmedicated patient was unresponsive for 12 hours—12 hours!—before staff called an ambulance. The committee also heard the story of Mr Spriggs, who passed away just six months after being admitted to Oakden. The Spriggs family have detailed a number of the instances of neglect and failure of care which occurred while Mr Spriggs was a resident at Oakden, and Senator Siewert touched on those. They include one very serious instance of medication mismanagement that saw Mr Spriggs admitted to hospital after he received 10 times the correct dose of an antipsychotic drug. The family's evidence was heart-wrenching. They have had to repeat this on a number of occasions, but they were so grateful that they were being heard by the committee, and I think that should be noted.

The evidence presented to the committee shows that the Oakden facility failed to provide an appropriate model of care. I don't think there's any argument about that. The committee heard from a former staff member of Oakden, Ms Sharon Olsson, who detailed many toxic aspects of nursing and management culture in the facility which led to a culture of fear, silence, cover-ups and inadequate care. I want to put on the record that the committee also heard evidence that there were some dedicated staff whom family members said they felt comfortable leaving their loved ones with. Unfortunately they were too few.

I want to turn my attention to the quality agency. The Aged Care Quality Agency appeared as a witness at both the Adelaide hearing and in Canberra last week. One of the most significant concerns the Aged Care Quality Agency centres on is evidence that the recommendations of the auditors were not always taken on board or were overridden by the quality agency in relation to Oakden. In January 2008 the assessment team that had conducted the evaluation recommended that the facility not be accredited, and the quality agency overrode this decision. This was in 2008—10 years earlier. As a member of the committee, I found the lack of acknowledgement and responsibility about renewing the facility's accreditation after repeated noncompliance at audits absolutely appalling.

The CEO of the quality agency, Mr Ryan, expressed that 'there were clearly learnings for us in terms of the way that we undertake our work' but 'responsibility for what occurred at Oakden, under the Aged Care Act, squarely falls with the provider.' Mr Ryan reaffirmed the quality agency's refusal to take responsibility by saying, 'I don't accept that there was chronic failure on our behalf'. I'd hate to be a witness and hear the evidence of when he would accept that they had failed in their responsibilities. I am ashamed, as an Australian, to have sat through those two hearings and to hear this evidence, and to have the head of the agency saying they had some 'learnings'. There are several points at which Oakden could have been closed—as early, as I said, as 2008—rather than continuing to operate for almost another 10 years. The continued blame-shifting from the agency does very little to reassure me of the agency's ability to learn from the past. I know the committee has made remarks about Mr Ryan's evidence in the report, but my disbelief of the attitude from the head of the agency quite frankly leaves me speechless.

In response to the care issues at Oakden coming to light, the Turnbull government announced an independent review on the national aged-care quality regulatory processes, commonly known as the Carnell-Paterson review. The Carnell-Paterson review made 10 recommendations, and the Australian government—the Turnbull government—immediately moved to implement recommendation 8, for unannounced audit visits. One recommendation to fix this issue is simply not good enough. I don't have a lot of confidence, I have to say, in the Turnbull government when it comes to delivering when we're talking about aged care. There are over a dozen important reviews and reports currently gathering dust on the desk of the Minister for Aged Care. There are a number of recent reviews and inquiries, including the Productivity Commission's 2011 report, Caring for older Australians, the Australian Law Reform Commission's 2017 Elder abuse report, and the report of Senate inquiry into the aged-care workforce, whose recommendations remain unimplemented. During the Canberra hearings last Monday night department officials confirmed that the department has no oversight over the agency. I'll repeat that: the federal department responsible for aged care in this country says it has no oversight over the agency, and that the agency is directly accountable to the minister. We still have had no further recommendations from the Carnell-Paterson report adopted.

I, too, would like to put on record my gratitude, and I know my committee members share it. How heartfelt it was for those families to give evidence, relive their tragedies, relive the hurt and abuse, and verbalise once again what happened to their loved ones. To all those who gave submissions, I want to thank you. Your voices have been heard. We are speaking up. I'm sure this won't be the last time that we speak about this issue. The committee heard from family members during the hearing on 21 November 2017 in Adelaide, and that evidence was overwhelmingly what brought us to the final report that we've given in relation to the Oakden situation. No-one should ever have to go through what those families and particularly those residents of Oakden lived through. It does not matter whether you have a mental health issue or you're living with dementia. No Australian, no human being, should be treated like that. Blame-shifting from one government or one agency to another is not good enough. It needs to end, and it needs to end now. This is absolutely crucial as our population ages and we see an increased number of people living with dementia and mental illnesses.

Unfortunately, I say with great regret—and I know I speak for everyone who sat in on any of those hearings—that we cannot change what happened at Oakden. We can't change that. We can't take the pain away from those families. But what we do have a responsibility to do is to ensure that every Australian older person and every Australian who has mental health issues who goes into residential care in this country are treated with respect and dignity and given the best possible care. We are a rich nation, and we should be able to lead the world and provide the world's best care for our most vulnerable people in this community.

I implore the minister and this government to act swiftly. There is no need to wait till the budget. There is no need for us to wait in anticipation that they might finally step up to the plate and do something. That responsibility is upon their shoulders today, and they can do something. They are the government. The families of those poor residents who died and were treated so abysmally need to know that their government has heard and that it is going to act now. (Time expired)