Woman 'bitten' at nursing home
By Peter Gardiner
21st April 2011
A GOVERNMENT watchdog has identified a “serious risk” to residents at a Tewantin nursing home.
It has ordered a number of sanctions, including the appointment of an independent nursing supervisor.
The Department of Health Care and Ageing has ordered that the Noosa Nursing Centre in Moorindil St cannot take new residents for six months.
Any breach of strict supervision conditions could result in the removal of its approved carer status.
The news comes as the daughter of an elderly resident claims her mother was assaulted with a serious bite on the hand by another resident.
The daughter claimed nursing management she had dealt with had been openly hostile when she raised a range of concerns.
The woman said a complaint which she considers to be baseless was made to the state authorities over her adult guardianship of her mother’s affairs and an interim guardian had been appointed.
A resident told the Daily that standover tactics were used on staff and residents by a management officer, who had recently ceased employment there.
The department’s website reports that the agency audit identified serious risk in relation to:
“The home’s registered and care staff do not have sufficient and/or accurate information to ensure care is provided in accordance with residents’ individual needs or changes to care needs.
“Information systems and communication in relation to clinical care are ineffective.
“Not all registered staff had appropriate skills and knowledge to perform their roles and responsibilities. Management are not monitoring and evaluating staff performance.”
The sanctions are in force until October 8, when the department spokeswoman said there will be a further review.
Noosa Nursing Centre spokesman Jamie Profke said the sanctions related to mostly administrative shortcomings that had occurred there in the “recent past”.
He said “no one’s been harmed, no one’s been injured” because of these identified shortcomings.
Mr Profke said the senior staff who had overseen these system inadequacies had recently chosen to leave the centre and the centre was working with a fully qualified person appointed last Sunday to oversee the necessary improvements in keeping records and paperwork.
In relation to the alleged attack on the resident, Mr Profke said that no nursing centre can provide one-on-one care to residents at all times and that the real issue was Queensland Health sending out people with mental illnesses to residential care centres.
He said the Noosa Nursing Centre had received strong support from the relatives of the residents in care at a meeting held last week to discuss the sanctions, as well as support from a senior state palliative care bureaucrat.
Mr Profke said the nursing centre, which has spaces for 130 high care residents and 100 low care, offered some of the best care facilities in the state
SOURCE: The Sunshine Coast Daily
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