Aged care home residents have undergone 86 per cent increase in physical and sexual assaults

JUST how safe is your elderly loved one in an aged care home? In the last year there have been 2,625 complaints of physical and sexual assault on nursing home residents.

Seven Network screengrab of nurse Roger Dean being interviewed outside Quakers Hill nursing home after he and fellow nurses helped to evacuate residents following fatal blaze at the nursing home in Sydney, that left five dead and a further 32 injured as 100 residents were evacuated. Dean has now been charged with setting the blaze and faces murder charges.

NURSING home residents are at risk of physical and sexual abuse, and even death, at the hands of nurses who are not properly vetted, recent aged care figures show.

In the past year there were 2625 cases of physical and sexual abuse in the nation’s nursing homes, an 86 per cent jump in assaults since recording began six years ago.

Of the 3725 complaints received by the Aged Care Complaints Scheme’ in 2014-15, nine out of 10 were about nursing homes.

Last week, aged care worker Garry Steven Davis, was committed for trial for murder over the deaths of Gwen Fowler and Ryan Kelly and the attempted murder of Audrey Manuel at the Summit Care Wallsend nursing home in Newcastle in 2013.

The court heard his posts to Facebook included one that read: “I hate old people.” He entered no plea and was refused bail.

Lorraine Long, the founder of the Medical Error Action Group, said nurses who assault elderly nursing home residents fit a pattern.

“I think the wrong people are being employed in nursing homes because they look at the elderly with contempt,” she told The Saturday Telegraph.

Ms Long said Roger Dean, the nurse who murdered 11 people by setting fire to a nursing home in Quakers Hill in 2011, was a classic example of an abusive nurse who was “a drug addict given free range to the drug cupboard”.

Donna Austin (centre right, black top) with her daughters Melissa Austin (left) and Shalyne Piliae (holding picture) and grandkids holding a pic of their great-grandma Alma Smith, who died in the Quakers Hill nursing home fire. Picture: Adam Taylor

“There needs to be tighter controls of the drug cupboard and a registered pharmacist on site.”

A spokeswoman for federal Assistant Minister for Health Ken Wyatt said the number of complaints had fallen since 2014.

But Paul Versteege, senior adviser to Combined Pensioners and Superannuants Association, said the number of complaints for significant and physical and sexual assaults had soared by 86 per cent over six years.

“The report does point to very lax recruitment procedures in the aged care industry,” he said.

“The wages are much lower than in the hospitals and you get the feeling that anybody can work in a nursing home.”

Despite poor pay, Mr Versteege, said all nursing homes made big profits “which the charitable ones call a surplus”.

“Nursing homes are very unsafe places. We can have a royal commissions into child abuse so why not one into nursing homes, where the situation is just as dire?”

Donna Austin’s mother Alma Smith was killed in the Quakers Hill fire, which was deliberately lit by Dean, whose references had not been checked.

Garry Steven Davis is alleged to have murdered two aged care facility residents.

Gwen Fowler died under suspicious circumstances at a Newcastle aged care facility.

“It’s upset me to learn nothing has really improved in the four years since the fire,” Ms Austin said.

Today, two out of 10 NSW nursing homes still do not have compliant sprinkler systems.

“Common sense says they need to do proper current resume checks on the people they are employing in the homes,” Ms Austin told The Saturday Telegraph.

Last week Dean had his appeal against his life sentence for 11 counts of murder dismissed. But the problems his case highlighted in the aged care industry remain.

Illustrating the lack of care in nursing homes and the need for an inquiry into security measures, Mr Versteege said last year Australian nursing homes reported 1127 residents had wandered off and gone missing.

“The government is the biggest financier of nursing homes and does everything it can to keep the industry happy,” Mr Versteege said.

“We need the government to face up to the problem and stop going hand in glove with an industry that is completely profit-driven,” he said.

Ms Austin, who still grieves for the needless death of her mother, wants something to be done.

“The residents need to be checked on and given a voice. Everything seems to go under the radar, these terrible things are happening and no one knows.”