Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before we adjourn tonight, I would like to make a contribution about some extremely distressing events which we saw unfold on the Gold Coast in Queensland a bit over a week ago at the Earle Haven Retirement Village. We obviously asked a number of questions of the minister during question time today. It is an incident that has attracted attention not just on the Gold Coast, where my office is based, but pretty much nationwide, I think, as a particularly awful incident involving vulnerable elderly people. I'm pleased the minister is here so that he can hear what I have to say. He might be able to take a few things away from this and follow up for tomorrow.

At the very beginning I want to make the point that I and anyone who has observed these incidents have been really shocked by what happened to around 70 elderly, frail people in their 80s and 90s, in some cases with dementia and a range of other illnesses, who were really left in the lurch a bit over a week ago when the nursing home that they live in—and that they presumably pay fees for and that taxpayers contribute towards—was shut down without any notice. I know that it's been an extremely distressing time for the residents, their families, the staff there and the community in general. I do want to acknowledge that the minister today in question time expressed his dismay as well, and I've seen that he has done so in the media in recent days as well. I appreciate him for acknowledging the distress that has been caused to people.

For those who haven't followed what occurred I might quickly give a little bit of background so that people know what I'm talking about. It's probably easiest if I just quote from a couple of the articles that were written, in particular, by the Gold Coast Bulletin after these events. The events happened on Thursday, 11 July. To quote the Gold Coast Bulletin: 'Vulnerable elderly residents of a private Gold Coast nursing home face uncertain futures after being left without carers, food and medical supplies due to a staff exodus yesterday. The state, Gold Coast Health, police and ambulance paramedics rushed to Nerang's Earle Haven Retirement Village aged-care wing in the afternoon and were relocating residents last night. Residents, many of whom are bedridden or suffer acute dementia, face a rushed relocation from the private facility to other city aged-care beds. Police had to use special powers to step in and relocate patients in the midst of the crisis yesterday.'

I think any of us who either have or have had elderly relatives in aged-care facilities—I'm sure all of us have been in that situation—know how vulnerable residents of these aged-care homes are at the best of times. The idea that all of a sudden a nursing home would effectively cease operations—thankfully, some of the staff stayed behind, contacted police, contacted ambulance services and made arrangements, but people were effectively left without proper medical care, without food, without arrangements being made. It was absolutely disgraceful and not what we want to see happen to any elderly person in our community.

Family members of the residents arrived. They were quoted as being 'shocked' to find the near-empty aged-care facility. There were reports of contractors arriving on site to remove medical equipment, medical records being removed, medical records being strewn all over the floor. I think we've all seen the photographs of that in the newspapers—absolutely disgraceful scenes, which shouldn't be occurring in a country like Australia. Staff have talked about valuables, including fridges, patient medication and documentation, being cleared by people they described as strangers. One nurse said that the only indication of the impending closure was the disappearance of patient medical record databases that morning, which management put down to a wifi outage. So total chaos in this nursing home, with highly vulnerable people bearing the brunt of it.

I think what's probably more distressing, arguably, than the events which unfolded is that it does seem that there had been a number of warning signs about trouble at this particular nursing home, which did not prompt action by any government figure. I know the minister's only been in the role a short time, but the regulators, the department, ministers, ministers' officers—there had been a number of warnings, and it didn't take a lot of effort for me to find out myself. All it takes is just going to the government's My Aged Care website and you can see the history of sanctions that have been issued against a company called People Care Pty Ltd, who were running this nursing home. They go back as far as 2007. There are sanctions issued back in April 2007, when People Care was deemed not eligible to receive Australian government subsidies for any new care recipients for a period of six months, ceasing on 3 December 2016. That was prompted by the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency providing a report that identified serious risks to care recipients at the services: failure to ensure that care recipients received appropriate clinical care; failure to ensure that care recipients' skin integrity is consistent with their general health; failure to ensure that care recipients receive adequate nutrition and hydration; and failure to provide care recipients with a safe and comfortable environment. I wouldn't have thought it gets a lot worse than that. That is a complete failure to provide a decent, safe service to residents. And that's back in 2007.

There have been other sanctions issued concerning failure to provide financial reports. I recognise that there is an investigation underway. We'll see what that reveals, but it seems pretty clear that there is some sort of financial dispute. It's possible that money hasn't been available to pay staff and other costs. Quite recently, I think in January this year, a sanction was issued against People Care for failing to comply with requirements under the Aged Care Act to provide an aged-care financial report within four months after the end of the financial year.

So, all up, prior to this event there were four different sanctions issued against People Care Pty Ltd, the service provider at this nursing home. I think many of us in Queensland who have been observing this are wondering why this didn't trigger more prompt action by the regulator and by the government as a whole. I would have thought that that number of sanctions against a particular nursing home would be enough to tell you that there's a serious problem and that perhaps even more serious action than simply issuing a sanction should be considered.

There was a report in the Gold Coast Bulletin today where former staff of the nursing home say they were purchasing their own equipment to cover shortages in the lead-up to the mass exodus of the facility. The Queensland Nurses and Midwives' Union has had to bring legal action in the Fair Work Commission to try to recover unpaid wages and superannuation, I'm told, going back several years. That is not a secret matter. This is stuff that's on the public record that would have been available to everyone concerned. There was another report in the Courier-Mail a few days ago which talked about the global owner of the subcontractor who was hired by People Care—a company called Help Street—the global owner of Help Street has previously been banned from managing companies by the federal government's own corporations watchdog, ASIC, because of unpaid debts.

So we've got a service provider that has been repeatedly sanctioned by the government's own aged-care regulators for failing to meet safety and care standards for its residents. We've got a subcontractor who is owned by someone who has been banned from managing companies in Australia. I think you really do have to wonder: what has it got to take before some sort of serious action is taken?

I have to say, I was a bit disappointed that the minister wasn't aware of some of these incidents when he was asked questions about it today. I know he took them on notice, and he may have an opportunity to provide us with some more information because all of that information is on the public record. Minister Colbeck, if I could just say: there are many of us based on the Gold Coast who are looking for some answers about how this happened and why the regulator didn't know. I know you've got an investigation underway, but we would appreciate some answers to these basic questions sooner than that.

In the time that I've got remaining, I want to pay tribute to the staff at this nursing home—the paramedics, people from Gold Coast Health and every single person who got involved in this emergency effort. I'm sure that when those people turned up to work that day they weren't expecting that they were going to be part of some mass evacuation exercise. But they did the job well and people have been looked after, so thank you to the staff. As we mentioned in question time today, I think there are some serious implications for the health system and the aged-care system on the Gold Coast generally, and I really do hope that places will be available for those who need them.