Rapes, assaults and neglect: Our elderly deserve better

Elderly Australians living in nursing homes now worked hard all their lives – and some even went to war. The least we can do is care for them in return.

Editorial: More than a year has passed since a Royal Commission exposed a “cruel and shameful system’’ of care for elderly Australians living in nursing homes.

In 792 pages of sickening reading, the interim report revealed horrifying assaults, dreadful food, maggots in wounds, and residents doped or left in their own faeces.

One elderly Queensland woman was left crying in bed with a broken back.

“This cruel and harmful system must be changed,’’ the Royal Commission concluded.

“It is unkind and uncaring towards (older people and) in too many instances, it simply neglects them.’’

It seems incomprehensible that one year and two months after those shocking revelations, frail and elderly Australians are still being bashed, starved and doped in nursing homes.

Distressing new government data reveals 103 “reportable assaults’’ every week, with 4034 cases of physical and sexual assaults notified to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (ACQSC) between January and September last year.

And an investigation by News Corp Australia last week revealed that the ACQSC has slapped current sanctions or compliance orders on 26 Australian aged care homes, after unannounced audits revealed serious risks to residents.

Southport Lodge in Queensland was on the list. Picture: Google Maps

At one Victorian home, inspectors uncovered “multiple incidents of sexually in appropriate or physically aggressive behaviour’’ between residents.

“Evidence of poor care and rough handling’’ was witnessed at one NSW nursing home run by the Anglican Church, a Christian organisation.

Queensland’s Coroner is investigating the death of a resident at the Japara Noosa nursing home, after a surprise ACQSC audit in October 2020 revealed an elderly man had been bashed to death and another had died of a morphine overdose.

ACQSC inspectors discovered “multiple assaults between consumers, causing injury and death’’, and revealed the home had removed call bells and denied some residents critical medical care.

Japara said it had apologised to residents and families for the “shortcomings’’ and was working with ACQSC to fix the problems.

That same private aged care provider was singled out in the Royal Commission’s interim report 14 months ago.

Noosa Japara aged care home in Tewantin.

Japara’s founder and former chief executive Andrew Sudholz – who earned a million-dollar salary before stepping down last March for family reasons – had labelled a woman “vexatious’’ after she used a hidden camera to record carers repeatedly assault her father at Japara’s Mitcham nursing home in South Australia in 2015.

The Royal Commission found the frail old man “was the subject of a series of degrading assaults’’ while his daughter “had to contend with an organisation determined to avoid accountability for its actions”.

It named Mr Sudholz as “belligerent in his ignorance of these serious events”.

How is it that almost a year later, after such stinging public criticism, government auditors found shocking abuse and neglect in another of Japara’s nursing homes, at Noosa, in October 2020?

The aged care industry seems slow to learn from its problems, and to fix them.

Despite COVID-19 infecting 2029 residents in 215 nursing homes – killing 678 elderly Australians last year – recent ACQSC audits have detected pandemic control breaches in 15 nursing homes nationally.

Elderly Australians living in nursing homes now worked hard all their lives – and some even went to war – to protect the lives and livelihoods of younger generations.

The least we can do is care for them in return.