By Wendy Carlisle for Four Corners
June 1, 2009
Federal Minister for Ageing Justine Elliot likes to think of herself as the tough cop on the beat, bringing recalcitrant nursing homes into line.
She has just announced a new "name and shame" website, to go live on July 1, which will list those nursing homes which are facing sanctions and could be in danger of losing government subsidies.
And those subsidies are not insubstantial. At about $45,000 per person per year, they are costing the Government about $40 billion over the next four years.
With so much public money propping up nursing homes, the public demand for evidence that their loved ones are getting the care they deserved is growing.
Ms Elliot, herself a former policewoman, has promised a new era of transparency and accountability in Australia's 2,830 nursing homes, which care for some 167,000 elderly folk.
She cites the Department's Complaints Investigation Scheme (CIS) - set up to investigate families' complaints into nursing homes - as further evidence of her determination to ensure confidence in the way Australia's nursing homes are caring for the elderly.
There will be more spot checks she says, and more police checks of staff.
There are clearly a lot of families very unhappy with the care their parents and loved ones are receiving in our nursing homes. Last year the CIS received 7,500 complaints.
But of the over 700 complaints alleging assault and the 200 alleging sexual assault, only 53 were referred to police.
What came of the police referrals or the 850 other allegations is not known. The Minister could provide no details.
As for the thousands of other complaints, often alleging serious neglect and lack of care, not much is known.
The stories Four Corners heard tell a different tale than the official version. Families told of a Complaints Investigation Scheme that ran dead on their complaints and ignored their evidence.
They pointed to an independent appeal process that the department could and did ignore.
They worried the name and shame website would provide less information about nursing homes than it currently did.
What they wanted above all was full disclosure of the outcome of their complaints.
Indeed the independent Aged Care Commissioner, Rhonda Parker, found that half of the CIS decisions that came to her for review were flawed.
She told Four Corners the CIS often failed to give reasons for rejecting complaints, that investigative processes were often poor and complainants were denied natural justice.
But the department is not obliged to accept the commissioner's recommendations and frequently does not.
Professor Alan Pearson, a former panel chair in the old Complaints Resolution Scheme, told Four Corners the CIS was operating to protect the minister. "It's a deeply flawed system" he said.
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