Shortage of nursing home staff and lack of empathy the recurring themes at a community forum for the royal commission

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A nursing home staff member told Janet Lyall her mother Ruth was “taking up too much staff time” a week before the dementia sufferer died.

For a year, Lyall had been fighting an uphill battle to ensure her mother, a high-care non-verbal patient, was getting basic attention at all – including a shower everyday and assistance dressing during morning hours.

Lyall recalled one occasion when her mother was was still in bed at 3.30pm – not toileted, not showered, in a mess. It was a common occurrence for her to be still in bed up to 11am.

“Mum stank. You don’t smell like that if you’re showered everyday,” Lyall told the Guardian.

“She was left for hours sitting in her own mess.”

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A shortage of staff and lack of empathy were recurring themes ringing out across the Bendigo Town Hall at a community forum for the aged care royal commission on Tuesday.

A crowd of 300 people, along with commissioner Lynelle Briggs, listened to stories of abuse and neglect.

Ruth Lyall, 84, died in October last year from sepsis which is a blood infection.

For many months she had grown a reputation at the nursing home for singing in her room, but Lyall said her mother had stopped singing towards the end and looked very sad.

Over my dead body I will ever go into a nursing home, just based on my experiences with mum Janet Lyall

Lyall said would often find used continence pads on the floor of her room and frequently observed distracted staff playing with their mobile phones.

She said the nursing home had dubbed her a “troublemaker” for making frequently complaints.

“Over my dead body I will ever go into a nursing home, just based on my experiences with mum,” Lyall said.

Edgard Proy grew so frustrated by the inattention his migrant parents were receiving at their aged care centre, he took matters into his own hands.

He employed a team of private carers at $30 an hour for 11-hour-a-day shifts, six days a week, to look after them at their nursing home.

“It’s funded by my parents’ life savings, sadly this won’t last,” Proy said.

His mother Monica, 82, has dementia and father Silvio, 76, suffered a stroke and is paralysed down his left side.

His mother needs constant supervision like a “small child”, while his father has his faculties but needs someone to fetch his iPad, reposition him and assist with toilet visits.

Proy spoke of a two-year fight to push the centre to wean his mother off a cocktail of drugs.

“Today mum is no longer suppressed, she smiles and laughs all the time. Yes she’s living with dementia but her essence is back,” he said.

Helen Sculley spoke of her despair that her younger sister Christina Jenkins ended up in a Ballarat nursing home in her early 50s. She had Down’s syndrome and had developed early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Jenkins died in June 2017 after one year at the centre.

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Sculley and anther sister Pam White were so upset by what they claim was mistreatment at the nursing home they briefly contemplated kidnapping her.

“Her diabetes was greatly mismanaged. She required insulin between 7.30 and 8am and occasionally I would visit at 10.30am and she would be still in bed with no insulin or breakfast,” she said.

Murray Saunder said he wants a stronger focus on quality of life for his 85-year-old mother, who has become anxious, bored and developed a rebel streak since entering a nursing home.

He called for single staff member point-of-contacts to update families, transition programs to help new residents adjust, and personal trainers to conduct movement classes.

“Aged care facilities should be staffed with compassionate caring staff, they shouldn’t be staffed with people who have been forced to do an aged care course by Centrelink because they can’t find work somewhere else,” Saunder said.

“Aged care facilities should be considered homes first, workplaces second and institutions a distant third.”

* The next aged care royal commission community forum is in Wollongong, New South Wales, on 13 March