Illoura staff run ragged as residents wait for basic assistance

Some Illoura residents are waiting more than half an hour for basic care, a meeting has heard

The Chinchilla News revealed the huge staffing cuts at Illoura earlier this month.

STAFF are stretched so thin at Southern Cross Care Queensland's Illoura nursing home that some residents have to wait more than half an hour before carers can attend to their basic needs.

Residents and family members of residents made it clear they were appreciative of the work staff did at Illoura but took aim at Southern Cross Care Queensland's management of the centre.

The Chinchilla News has obtained a copy of a recording of a meeting held at Illoura last Wednesday afternoon, where residents and family members were invited to discuss recent staffing cuts with members of SCCQ head office.

It is understood more than 2800 hours have been cut from fortnightly rosters across eight SCCQ facilities throughout the state - including 518 at Illoura.

Residents and their families were given a day's notice of the meeting, via a flyer posted on the front door of the nursing home.

An Illoura staff member told those assembled the meeting was called at short notice because of "inflammatory comments” on social media and "all of the news media” and that it was decided "the ladies from head office needed to come out to talk to residents and staff”.

About 11 residents and family members attended the meeting, with several wondering why SCCQ hadn't tried emailing or phoning families to let them know it was on.

One resident told the meeting he thought the facility was understaffed.

He pointed to several incidents in the week after SCCQ made the staffing cuts, including one elderly woman incapable of dressing herself who was reduced to tears on two mornings because she didn't know what was happening and staff didn't attend to her as usual. In another instance, a wheelchair-bound gentleman rang the bell for help and had to wait 45minutes for someone to assist him.

"Another one, he's a cancer patient. This is the first week, he was left sitting on the toilet,” the resident said.

"He rang for over half an hour... He's in pain and he fixed himself up and that but he had to wait half an hour.”

A second resident said he quite often found himself sitting on the toilet, waiting for staff to assist him.

"I'm not complaining, it's only one thing, but it's hard on the patient sitting there early in the morning, freezing. It's pretty cold on there,” he said.

An Illoura staff member said there hadn't been "a lot of change in wait times” as a result of staff cuts and that ideally the facility would like to get "all bell calls under five minutes”.

"Wait times are unsatisfactory now as they were prior to the roster review. There's not significant change in that in the last week, however it's not good overall anyway. We talked about that with staff today,” the staff member said.

The staff member also said the first week of the staff cuts resulted in some "teething problems” due to staff members on sick leave, "unanticipated annual leave” and an administration error that meant a shift was accidentally left off the roster.

She assured residents and their families the error wouldn't happen again and that an additional 130 hours had been put back on the roster after the initial 518-hour cut.

The meeting covered a range of topics, from the atmosphere of the nursing home - "it's not one of happiness at the moment”, one resident noted - to government funding, staff pay rises and Illoura's poor communication with residents' families.

A SCCQ representative from Brisbane told the meeting that staffing levels were now "at the middle of the pack” relative to a benchmarking survey done of more than 700 other aged care facilities across Australia and New Zealand.

The SCCQ representative also said the organisation was looking to pay staff "more in line with industry standards”.

"That actually is part of what this realignment is about,” she said, something that to date has not been mentioned by the organisation.

"We, as an organisation, have paid at the bottom of the pay scale for aged care workers and as an organisation we've realised that's not good enough... This next 12 months the staff will be getting a significant pay rise.”

In a statement to the Chinchilla News, SCCQ said last week's meeting was "part of our ongoing commitment to ensure that residents, their families and our staff have accurate information in relation to the roster adjustments and any other issues”.

"This was the first of what will become regular weekly meetings to address misinformation, respond to community issues and ensure our community can contribute to our ongoing and undiminished commitment to the care and welfare of our residents,” SCCQ said.

"These meetings are in no way held in secret and minutes will be available for those members of our community who can't attend.

"A number of individual residents raised issues of concern regarding their care and all these issues are being fully investigated and will be addressed through improved procedures.

"Addressing clinical acuity lies at the heart of our roster realignment and this is why Southern Cross Care has appointed a clinical manager who is relocating from interstate to take up this important new role at the Chinchilla centre.”

"The roster realignment will continue to be assessed and reassessed during the implementation phase and any gaps that raise concerns about quality of care will be addressed.

"Southern Cross Care is in the business of providing quality care on a not-for-profit basis and in many cases for the benefit of communities with limited access to aged care.

"Our commitment to the quality of that care is absolute, but we would be irresponsible if we failed to ensure the sustainability of this vital community service.”