Luxury aged-care home served up maggots

A LUXURY nursing home served food with maggots, let a lady go unshowered for weeks and left a mattress covered in faeces for months after a resident died, complaints to the aged-care watchdog reveal.

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A LUXURY nursing home served food with maggots, let a lady go unshowered for weeks and left a mattress covered in faeces for months after a resident died, complaints to the aged-care watchdog reveal.

Wesley Mission’s John Wesley Gardens, which opened in the north Brisbane suburb of Geebung barely a year ago, was the subject of complaints to the Aged Care Complaints Commission (ACCC) about food, cleanliness and quality of care.

John Wesley Gardens in Geebung has had several complaints made against it. Picture: AAP/Steve Pohlner

In confidential findings, the ACCC reveals a resident was served a meal “that contained a maggot or grub”.

“The service acknowledges the incident occurred and has put strategies in place (including) … the removal of baby potatoes as a menu item,” the ACCC said in its decision.

The ACCC also investigated a complaint that “a resident was not showered for three weeks and was found with a continence aid containing mouldy faeces, vaginal discharge and excess stale urine”.

The Geebung aged-care home opened barely a year ago. Picture: AAP/Steve Pohlner

The home told the ACCC the resident was given “regular hygiene cares, despite regularly refusing cares’’.

The ACCC said it was satisfied “the service has strategies in place to ensure the resident is reapproached when refusal of cares occurs and are committed to ensuring dignity and hygiene cares are regularly reviewed in light of this complaint’’.

Wesley Mission charges residents a bond of up to $549,000, or $602 a week, for a single room in the John Wesley Gardens home, which it boasts is “a state-of-the-art community offering premier aged care living at its finest’’.

The ACCC document reveals it investigated a complaint that a mattress was left “covered in faecal matter for three months after a resident using the room had passed away”, and “a directive was issued to a staff member to have the mattress cleaned and sanitised”.

The ACCC report says the home “acknowledged’’ a resident was not given her prescribed medication after leaving hospital and “implemented educational strategies to clinical staff” to mitigate the risk of the issue occurring again.

Complaints made against the aged-care home.

The ACCC concluded “improvements have been made to resident care’’ as a result of whistleblower complaints.

A Wesley Mission spokeswoman said the ACCC had informed them “the matter is now closed”.

“We take these complaints seriously,” she said. “At the time these complaints were raised, we took all appropriate steps to investigate these allegations as a matter of priority.”