Patient records, drugs and even cleaning supplies were stripped from a Gold Coast aged-care home that abruptly shut down, forcing the emergency evacuation of about 70 residents, the Queensland government says.
Health Minister Steven Miles says he’s utterly disgusted by what happened at the Earle Haven Retirement Village at Nerang on Thursday.
He has demanded a probe by federal regulators and accused the facility’s owner and an aged-care contractor – who are in dispute – of walking out on 70 high-care residents.
The scale of the evacuation was so daunting it was deemed a full scale health emergency, with disaster management plans usually triggered by cyclones and floods enacted.
“It should never have happened,” Mr Miles told reporters on Friday.
“There’s no excuse for taking their patient records, no excuse for taking their pharmaceuticals, for taking their mop buckets, for taking the gloves that staff would use to help them toilet and shower.
“The behaviour here, whoever is responsible, is just disgusting.”
He said patient records vanished leaving paramedics and doctors scrambling to know how best to treat and care for residents.
“As I understand it, store room after store room was cleared of anything that could be considered valuable.
“Our health staff had to reconstruct health histories and medication requirements for the residents, in order to stabilise them and provide them with their healthcare needs.”
Mr Miles said police would be looking at whether any offences had been committed.
He said federal aged-care regulators must determine how a commercial dispute led to the abandonment of frail, elderly people.
“At the end of the day, they are charged with taking care of 70-odd vulnerable Queenslanders, they make a profit from caring for 70-odd vulnerable Queenslanders and whatever their internal disputes, there is no excuse for just walking out on them.”
Mr Miles revealed a triple 0 call on Thursday afternoon sparked the full-scale disaster response, with dozens of paramedics and Queensland Health staff brought in to deal with distressed residents, many suffering from dementia.
Concerned next-of-kin with loved ones residing at Earle Haven Retirement Village can contact the Gold Coast Care Team via 13 Health (13 43 25 84) for info. Please leave your contact details if your call is not answered immediately, your call will be returned ASAP #GoldCoastHealth pic.twitter.com/yzxMpbX1Xf
— Gold Coast Health (@GC_Health) July 11, 2019
Dr Jeremy Wellwood from Gold Coast Health said he learned at 2pm about what was unfolding at the centre, and it quickly became clear patient safety was at risk.
“There was inadequate staff to care for the patients,” he told reporters on Friday.
“It was our priority to make sure these elderly frail residents were safe and were adequately cared for. We’re so grateful we found other locations for them. This was a massive undertaking to transfer this number of patients …”
Scenes of ‘pandemonium’
The Queensland Nurses Union has described scenes of “pandemonium”, with some staff ordered to leave the facility as medical equipment was being removed.
The owner of the village, People Care, is embroiled in a dispute with a medical contractor, HelpStreet, trusted to operate the aged-care wing.
People Care says it decided to terminate its contract with HelpStreet.
It says it gave the contractor until August 9 to vacate the property, but HelpStreet “decided to leave earlier”.
HelpStreet says People Care failed to pay it for its services and that meant staff were told not to show up for work on Thursday.
-AAP
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