Website for the Ouse District Hospital of the Derwent Valley and Central Highlands

MINISTER MUST INVESTIGATE OUSE AGED CARE BED CLOSURE CONCERNS

4 Statutory Declarations Dispute Government Notification Claims

Tim Morris MHA

Wednesday, 29th August 2007
For Comment: State Parliamentary Offices of the Tasmanian Greens, (03) 6233 8300

The Tasmanian Greens today alleged that the government has made misleading and erroneous statements regarding whether the Ouse District Hospital aged care residents and their families had received timely and adequate notification that those aged care beds were to close under the Future Health Plan.

Greens Member for Lyons, Tim Morris MHA, tabled in the Lower House during Question Time four statutory declarations from Ouse residents and family members in which they categorically refuted public statements made by the Attorney General, Steve Kons, that ‘formal notification in accordance with the Act was provided to each of the residents on May 24, the day of the Future Health Plan announcements’, and instead stating that the only notification received from the government arrived on the 13th of July.

Mr Morris has also called on the state Health Minister, Lara Giddings, to investigate whether the notification requirements of the Aged Care Act 1997 have been met in the case of the six Ouse residents, to correct the public record given Mr Kons’ inaccurate statement of the 12th of July, and immediately apologise to those residents and their family members.

“The discrepancy in reports of when the Ouse community were notified of the imminent closure of the aged care bed facilities, looks like there was a realisation by government that in fact the notifications had not been sent and a rapid rearguard action was put in place to paper over that failure, and also raises concerns that therefore the Labor government has not met the requirements under the federal Aged Care Act 1997,” Mr Morris said.

“The community is so outraged by these inaccurate statements that four of them have felt the need to detail their version of events in four separate statutory declarations that I was honoured enough to table in the Parliament on their behalf today.”

“The community deserve better. If there was a mistake made which meant that the formal notification that the six residents should have received on the 24th of May, then the Minister should just be big enough to come out and admit it, and apologise.”

“Instead what appears to have happened, once the penny dropped that those letters had not been distributed, was a faxed ‘open letter’ being distributed on the 13th of July approximately twenty days later, and one day after Acting Health Minister Kons has issued a media statement saying that the residents had been notified.”

“This very much looks like an after-the-fact fix up the problem manoeuvre.”

“It also raises serious concerns that the Labor government’s actions have not complied with the notification obligations specified by the Aged Care Act 1997, and I have called on the Health Minister to investigate whether in fact the Act has been complied with.”

Mr Morris detailed the chronology of events:

  1. On 24th May you announced the Tasmania’ Health Plan. On that day, a meeting was convened by the Director of Primary Health, the Deputy Secretary and the Area Manager South at the Ouse Hospital – after notice of only 2 days.
  2. At that meeting, the closure of the aged care beds was announced – along with other Health Plan issues. No written notification whatsoever was given to residents or their families at this meeting.
  3. On 9th July, the first resident (Mrs Hill) moves out – still without having received any written notice whatsoever.
  4. Three days later, on 12th July, the Acting Minister for Health, Steve Kons said in a press statement: “Formal notice in accordance with the Act was provided to each of the residents on May 24, the day of the Future Health Plan announcements.”
  5. The next day, the 13th July a letter entitled “Open Letter to Family and Residents of Ouse District Hospital” written by the Director of Primary Health outlining the changes at Ouse, magically appears on the fax machine at the Ouse Hospital – sent from the New Norfolk Hospital. That letter was dated 24th May, and was handed to the aged residents at Ouse. That belated “open letter” is, to date, the only written notification given to the aged residents who required to leave their community.
  6. In Freedom of Information material received from the Department, the Director of Health states in the email dated 28th May that the letter (entitled “Open Letter to Family and Residents of Ouse District Hospital) “…was handed to residents and their families on Thursday 24 May.”
  7. The Greens provided with statutory declarations from four people - including an aged resident, the son of an aged care couple and two other highly regarded member of the public – all stating categorically that no letter about the closure of the beds was handed out at that meeting of 24 May.

“Aged care residents of Australia are guaranteed a degree of consideration and dignity by the User Rights Principles made under the Aged Care Act 1997. From my reading, these Principles have not been followed in this eviction process.”

Section 23.6(1) of the Principles states that, where an approved provider (that is - the Department) decides to close a residential care service, written notice must be given to the resident, and is to include - among other things:

(c)       when the care recipient is to leave;

(d)       the care recipient’s rights about leaving, including the right of access to:

(i)        the complaints resolution mechanisms;and

(ii)       independent complaints processes;and

(iii)      1 or more representatives of an advocacy service.

“When the residents were required to leave has never been notified to them. No information was ever given to them the presence of, much less access to, complaints mechanisms or to an advocacy service. To this day these requirements have not been met,” Mr Morris said.

“The Minister must now assess whether the eviction of the aged care residents from the Ouse Hospital have followed the statutory requirements of The Age Care Act 1997 and the User Rights Principles 1997.”

Mr Morris has also called on the Minister, given the apparent gross breach of these legislative requirements, to also undertake the following:

  1. That, henceforth, the Department will strictly follow all legislative requirements applicable to the moving of residential aged care patients from the Ouse District Hospital including the Aged Care Act 1997 and the User Rights Principles made under that Act.
  2. That, until those procedures are strictly followed, no further actions will be made to remove further aged care residents from the Hospital.
  3. That, until those procedures are followed, the two residential aged care beds which are fully funded by the Commonwealth Government will remain to be used by any of the 25 ACAT* assessed residents of the Central Highlands local government area.
  4. That, as a matter of courtesy, the DHHS will inform the Central Highlands community as to the specific steps which are being taken in relation to all residential aged care beds at the Ouse District Hospital – before those steps are taken.
  5. That the minimum time to be set out under s.23.6(1)(c) of the User Rights Principles is to be 12 months. 

* Aged Care Assessment Team procedure.

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Source: http://tas.greens.org.au/News/view_MR.php?ActionID=2534