Oakden aged care residents remain at ‘significant and immediate’ risk, federal health authorities warn
OAKDEN aged care residents remain at “significant and immediate” risk more than a month after the release of a report that chronicled patient abuse, federal health authorities have warned.
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OAKDEN aged care residents remain at “significant and immediate” risk more than a month after the release of a report that chronicled patient abuse, federal health authorities have warned.
Compliance case reports reveal mismanagement of medication at the older persons mental health facility has seriously affected patients recently and that it must be addressed “as a matter of urgency”.
Medicine management incidents range from overdosing to missed or significantly delayed doses.
“Recent media attention on a medication error to a CR (care recipient) in 2016 has not prompted the AP (approved provider) to change or improve systems,” a report states.
A report from March this year, prepared after the federal audit agency imposed sanctions on the facility, found there had been “further serious medication incidents to other CRs in the last week”.
“The (Federal) Department of Health considers that there are still serious risks to the quality of care,” a spokeswoman said on Thursday.
A spokeswoman from the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency said there was serious risk to the “safety, health and wellbeing” of residents at the home.
“We continue to conduct daily visits at the home to monitor the homes’ performance against the Accreditation Standards,” she said.
Senator Nick Xenophon said the revelations were “shocking” and made it clear those in charge of Oakden did not “give a stuff” about the patients.
“They can’t claim they were ignorant of the overdosing, they just ignored it,” Senator Xenophon said.
“Over-medicating can seriously incapacitate residents or cause death, in some cases.”
Barb Spriggs, whose husband Bob was given 10 times the prescribed amount of an antipsychotic medication at Oakden last year and was likely the patient referred to in the compliance case reports, said it was “unbelievable” other patients could be going through this.
“I can’t use strong enough words to express the frustration I feel about how long it is taking to put new procedures in place to protect patients,” she said.
“I don’t understand why it’s so hard. It seems as though they just don’t give two hoots.”
Stewart Johnston, whose mother accused Oakden staff of repeated assaults in 2008, said he was “dumbfounded”.
“It has been endemic — over-medication or incorrect medication — so to even consider the fact this is still an issue when so many resources have supposedly now been put in to the place is astounding,” he said.
A spokeswoman for the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network, the State Government agency responsible for running Oakden, said residents would be moved to a facility at Northgate as soon as possible.
“We recognise that medication safety is a key issue that has needed addressing at Oakden,” the spokeswoman said.
“All nursing staff have completed additional training and we have employed a new senior clinical pharmacist for Oakden, as well as making improvements to our systems for managing medication distribution.”