Every Victorian aged care home ranked on how safe residents feel

Shocking findings have emerged after aged care residents were asked how safe they feel in their facility, and many did not have glowing reviews. See how homes in Victoria ranked.

EXCLUSIVE: Aged care residents in 50 homes across Victoria say they never feel safe, a shocking survey reveals.

While 47 homes got a perfect score for the question, ‘Do you feel safe here?’, in 50 aged care facilities up to a fifth of residents surveyed claimed that was never the case.

Mooraleigh Hostel in Bentleigh East, was ranked the lowest in the state for safety, with one fifth of residents surveyed saying they never feel safe. Another 40 per cent said they only feel safe some of the time, 20 per cent feel safe most of the time, and another 20 per cent always feel safe.

Mooraleigh did not respond to our request for comment.

The Government data was collated last year from up to 20 per cent of residents from each home. More than 650 Victorian homes were surveyed. The results go towards their overall Star Ratings.

Anna Willis, CEO of Aged Care Justice, which helps people seeking legal redress due to financial, emotional or physical damage suffered in residential aged care or home care, said there had been an uptick in complaints this year, with 45 inquiries already, compared to 110 last year.

“We have had serious complaints from all over Australia,” Ms Willis said.

Aged Care Justice CEO Anna Willis. Picture: Supplied

Two complainants, with residents in homes not in this state’s lowest ranked, revealed how their mothers felt unsafe.

One said she was shocked to find her mother, who is in her 90s, had been prescribed strong antipsychotic drugs by a visiting GP, which she did not need, and put in a memory loss unit where people were screaming and shouting all day, and walking in and out of her room.

“While on those drugs she could hardly put one leg in front of the other and she was having falls in the nursing home,” the daughter, who did not want to be identified, said. She is no longer on those drugs and has been moved.

On another occasion the daughter arrived to find her mother’s feet were badly swollen, but no one had noticed.

One aged care resident suffered injuries after falling getting on a bus without help. Picture: Supplied

“I raced up to the nurse and I said, ‘My God, look at my mother’s feet, look at this, they’re so swollen, the skin has split’. It was terrible.”

Another relative said staff failed to ensure her mother was able to get on a bus safely, and she fell, leaving her with cuts and bruises.

“They pulled her by the hands to pull her up,” she said. “They could have pulled her arms out of her sockets. Where’s the training or common sense? She’s fragile.”

One aged care resident suffered injuries after falling getting on a bus without help. Picture: Supplied

The Aged Care Act, due to come into force in July, will give the regulator more powers to take action against aged care facilities.

Other facilities ranked lowest in the state include Hope Aged Care Brunswick. A spokesperson said they believed this year’s results would be much improved and recent internal surveys indicated that residents did in fact feel that their environment was safe.

At McLellan House, a spokesperson said overall consumer feedback from the survey on other questions was positive.

Albury Wodonga Health Residential Care Program said it had introduced a program to “reduce restrictive practices, address conflict factors, and enhance safety and care” at the specialised psychogeriatric facility.

Originally published as Every Victorian aged care home ranked on how safe residents feel