David Penberthy: Mitcham aged care scandal goes way beyond perpetrator
WE have witnessed another aged care scandal, right here in SA, which like the 2000 scandal stemmed from complaints by a loving daughter whose parent was subject to ill-treatment.
- Hidden camera captures abuse, apparent suffocation attempt
- How Corey Lucas lied to cover up his abuse of Clarence Hausler
- Corey Lucas stressed about work when he abused Clarence Hausler
WELL before she landed herself in strife over her questionable use of a helicopter, Bronwyn Bishop faced a career-threatening scandal of a different kind. This one involved the questionable use of kerosene as a crude disinfectant for elderly residents of a Victorian nursing home.
Ms Bishop, the Minister for Aged Care, found herself caricatured as a sadistic Nurse Ratched figure as she initially tried to explain away the now-outdated practice of adding kerosene to water baths to disinfect sores. Like the application of leeches and the use of smelling salts, kerosene baths had been all the rage in the 19th and early 20th century.
But in the year 2000, few were comfortable with the revelation that Victoria’s Riverside Nursing Home had been busily dunking some 57 oldies in a tub full of diluted kero after an outbreak of scabies ravaged the centre. The nursing home was shut down and a subsequent Ombudsman’s inquiry recommended a streamlined complaints process.
Fast forward to 2016 and we have this week witnessed another aged care scandal, right here in SA, which like the 2000 scandal stemmed from admirable complaints by a loving daughter whose parent was being subjected to ill-treatment.
Beyond that, the two scandals differ markedly. The case involving the Victorian home went to nothing more than well-meaning incompetence. The people who ran that centre were not driven by cruelty or callousness. They thought they were doing the right thing, albeit by winding the clock back to the frontier days of modern medicine with their outdated methods.
The case at the Mitcham Aged Care Facility involves the purest form of callousness and cruelty by a rogue individual whose actions should not reflect on the loving work done by almost everyone else in the aged care sector.
But the case goes beyond that individual, because it also involves what smacked of a cover-up attempt by the operators of the Mitcham centre, in the form of heavy-handed legal threats against Noleen Hausler over her creditable decision to install a CCTV camera in her father Clarence’s bedroom.
It is unclear what caused more distress to the operators of the Mitcham facility — the abuse suffered by the defenceless Mr Hausler, or the possibility that the abuse would become public.
Such speculation is invited by their treatment of Noleen Hausler, whom they threatened with everything from surveillance laws to the Privacy Act when she sought to chronicle her Dad’s suffering.
The manner in which this instance of neglect and abuse was handled suggests that the complaints process, revamped as it was after the kerosene baths scandal, has not been revamped enough.
Also, it continues to seem strange that aged care is a federal responsibility, given Canberra’s supervisory remoteness from what is actually happening on the ground in these centres. Given that many older people make the final decision to move into aged care after a hospital episode, or have that tough decision made for them by families, it would probably make more sense if the sector were run by the states than the Commonwealth given its practical closeness to the provision of health care.
To his credit, the Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care Ken Wyatt said this week that nothing would be off the table as the Mitcham incident was investigated.
Special and scathing mention needs to be made in this case of the justice system. The sentence received by this non-caring carer, Corey Lyle Lucas, stands as one of those baffling examples of deliberation by a judge who somehow got it into his head that he was throwing the book at someone, when he was in fact flogging them with a limp piece of lettuce.
Just to recap, Lucas attempted to smother Mr Hausler with a napkin, violently force-fed him like a farm animal, deliberately sneezed on his face.
Magistrate Bob Harrap was scathing in his sentencing remarks.
“It is an understatement to say the victim is a vulnerable person who was in a particularly vulnerable position,” he said.
“Lucas’ treatment of the victim ... was appalling and showed a total disrespect for a person as vulnerable as this particular victim was.
“This was appalling treatment of an extremely vulnerable, elderly, unwell victim.
“The community needs to be assured that people who are prepared — for whatever reason — to act in this manner will be brought to account and can expect to receive periods to be served in custody.”
Strong stuff. And then, drumroll please, he imposed a seven-month sentence but ordered that Lucas be released after one month with a good-behaviour bond. Just four weeks in prison.
As an added punchline to this joke sentence, Lucas was given an “administrative discharge” from prison nine days before his scheduled release date.
Nineteen days in jail, when he faced a maximum sentence of two years.
Aside from all the other administrative and procedural questions raised by this case, I reckon the public will have two more, and they go to justice.
First, if you attempt to smother an 89-year-old Alzheimers sufferer with a napkin, why do you get charged with assault rather than attempted murder?
And if assaulting a helpless old man, who is non-verbal, and whose abuse was only detected by his daughter because of his constant weeping, does not attract the maximum two-year term, could you please tell us what does?