Government had no Covid-19 aged care plan, inquiry told, as ‘catastrophic’ failure alleged over St Basil’s
Government had no Covid-19 aged care plan, inquiry told, as ‘catastrophic’ failure alleged over St Basil’s, The aged care regulator has been accused of a “catastrophic communications failure” causing a “potentially deadly delay”, amid revelations it took four days for the body to inform the government about a Covid-19 outbreak at Melbourne’s St Basil’s aged care home.
The admission from the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner, Janet Anderson, was revealed on Monday morning, as her organisation and the Department of Health was simultaneously questioned during a hearing of the aged care royal commission for failing to prepare a Covid-19 response plan for the aged care sector.
At least 11 deaths and 163 infections have been associated with the St Basil’s outbreak. The revelation that it took four days for the ACQSC to alert the health department was made in a letter Anderson sent to the Senate select committee on Covid-19 on Friday.
She clarified that while she had previously said she was personally not aware of the St Basil’s case until 14 July, the commission itself had learned on 10 July that a staff member had tested positive on 8 July.
At a Senate select committee hearing on Covid-19 last week, the Department of Health secretary, Brendan Murphy, said the group learned of the St Basil’s outbreak on 14 July.
The outbreak led to all the staff at St Basil’s being stood down and replaced with a surge workforce, after the federal government intervened in the management of the home.
“The regulatory official from the commission who made the assessment contact referred the service’s responses to the commission’s Covid-19 response team and this information was escalated internally and recorded in the commission’s daily Covid-19 confirmed case tracker,” Anderson wrote.
“The commission did not escalate the matter externally at the time because the St Basil’s representative had confirmed in the interview that they had advised the PHU [Public Health Unit] of the outbreak,” Anderson said.
Labor’s aged care spokeswoman, Julie Collins, called the four-day delay a “catastrophic communications failure”, and said it “led to a potentially deadly delay in responding to the outbreak”.
“Time and time again the Morrison government has been warned about information sharing failures between its regulator and the Department of Health but has not acted. We are now seeing the tragic and avoidable consequences of not properly heeding these warnings,” she said.
Collins called on the aged care minister, Richard Colbeck, to “reveal today when he became aware the regulator did have knowledge of the outbreak of Covid-19 at St Basil’s but failed to pass it on”.
At a press conference on Monday, Scott Morrison said he was “concerned about that breakdown in the communications”.
The prime minister said he and Colbeck were “undertaking further inquiries” about the situation, but the government was not privy to all of the ACQSC’s information as “they’re an independent statutory office”.
During opening remarks at a hearing of the aged care royal commission, senior counsel assisting, Peter Rozen QC, revealed that the ACQSC and the Department of Health had no Covid-19 response plan for the aged care sector.
“Regulating the aged care sector as it confronts Covid-19 has been and continues to be this regulator’s biggest test. What did the commissioner do to prepare the sector? What has she done by way of regulating the sector?
“The regulator did not have an appropriate aged care sector Covid-19 response plan. Given that it was widely understood that recipients of aged care services were a high risk group, this seems surprising,” Rozen said.
“The evidence will reveal that neither the commonwealth Department of Health nor the aged care regulator developed a Covid-19 plan specifically for the aged care sector.”
Rozen also said it surprising that the AQSC had not investigated the circumstances of the Dorothy Henderson Lodge and Newmarch House outbreaks in Sydney, despite incident investigations being “normally one of the key tasks of any regulator”.
Rozen noted Department of Health data that said between 8 July and 9 August, more than 1,000 residents had been diagnosed with Covid-19, and 168 had died.
“Grandparents, parents, siblings and friends. A human tragedy,” he said.
“The aged care system we have in 2020 is not a system that is failing. It is the system operating as it was designed to operate. We should not be surprised at the results,” Rozen said.
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