{"id":859,"date":"2020-08-19T03:41:28","date_gmt":"2020-08-19T03:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trustedagedcare.com.au\/?p=859"},"modified":"2020-08-19T03:41:28","modified_gmt":"2020-08-19T03:41:28","slug":"covid-pandemic-reveals-system-failures-within-aged-care-royal-commission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trustedagedcare.com.au\/newsite\/2020\/08\/19\/covid-pandemic-reveals-system-failures-within-aged-care-royal-commission\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID Pandemic reveals system failures within aged care: Royal Commission"},"content":{"rendered":"
Coronavirus has severely exposed flaws within Australia\u2019s aged care systems, such as inadequate staff training and a lack of pandemic planning.<\/span><\/h5>\n

Counsel assisting the commission, Peter Rozen QC, made a statement on Monday which has described the global pandemic as the greatest challenge facing the sector.
\n\u201cIt is hardly surprising that the aged care sector has struggled to respond to COVID-19,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rozen said that evidence reveals neither the Commonwealth Department of Health nor the aged care regulator developed a COVID-19 sector-specific plan. This was despite federal Health Minister, Greg Hunt, saying in late July aged care was \u201cimmensely prepared\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n

Peter Rozen has indicated that the commission received 364 submissions since April, which makes reference to inadequate staff infection control, training and lack of access to personal protective equipment (PPE).<\/h6>\n

There has been confusion about virus guidelines \u2013 which was another problem, followed by inconsistent messaging from providers and state and federal governments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe COVID-19 pandemic has starkly exposed all of the flaws of the aged care sector,\u201d Rozen said.\u00a0 The response of two Sydney homes, Newmarch House and Dorothy Henderson Lodge, which were both reported to have had deadly outbreaks and as a result, will be closely examined.\u00a0 Rozen said there was a lack of high-level infection control expertise at Newmarch House. In effect, 17 residents died, until at least a fortnight into the outbreak.\u00a0 He said there were problems at both homes sourcing PPE (personal protective equipment).\u00a0 There was also \u201cvigorous disagreement\u201d between federal and NSW officials early-on in the outbreak about whether virus-positive residents at Newmarch House should be hospitalised.<\/p>\n

A total of 37 positive residents, two were transferred to hospital. One of those died, with the other 16 fatalities occurring at the home.\u00a0 Rozen said meeting records showed NSW Health in April had preferred not to move residents into hospital to avoid setting \u201ca precedent\u201d around transfers.<\/h6>\n

The boss of the facility\u2019s operator at Anglicare Sydney, Grant Millard, is expected to give sufficient evidence that Anglicare had little or no say about whether residents with the virus should be hospitalised.\u00a0 The CEO of BaptistCare, Ross Low, which operates Dorothy Henderson Lodge, is one of among seven witnesses expected to give evidence on Monday.
\nSix residents at the facility died of the virus, including three people among the first four COVID-19 fatalities in the Australia.<\/p>\n

The commission heard 168 aged care residents have died from the virus and 1000 have tested positive.
\nVictoria\u2019s aged care outbreak is not part of the commission\u2019s scope due to a lack of time and sensitivities around the state\u2019s current situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coronavirus has severely exposed flaws within Australia\u2019s aged care systems, such as inadequate staff training and a lack of pandemic planning. Counsel assisting the commission, Peter Rozen QC, made a statement on Monday which has described the global pandemic as the greatest challenge facing the sector. \u201cIt is hardly surprising that the aged care sector […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":861,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[21,64,23,57,63,71,25,26,72,24],"class_list":["post-859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aged-care","category-news","tag-aged-care","tag-aged-care-facility","tag-agedcare","tag-elderly","tag-health","tag-home-care","tag-housing","tag-nursing-home","tag-royal-commission","tag-seniors"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trustedagedcare.com.au\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trustedagedcare.com.au\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trustedagedcare.com.au\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trustedagedcare.com.au\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trustedagedcare.com.au\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/trustedagedcare.com.au\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trustedagedcare.com.au\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trustedagedcare.com.au\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trustedagedcare.com.au\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trustedagedcare.com.au\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}