Global health giant Bupa fails in 15 of its 30 NSW nursing homes for breaching basic care benchmarks
From Ashbury, Ashfield, and Bankstown to Dural, Seaforth and Roseville, down to Berry and Eden, Australia’s largest for-profit aged care provider has accrued a shame file of failures in half of its 30 NSW nursing homes. WARNING GRAPHIC
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From Ashbury, Ashfield, and Bankstown to Dural, Seaforth and Roseville, down to Berry and Eden, Australia’s largest for-profit aged care provider has accrued a shame file of failures in half of its 30 NSW nursing homes.
Global health giant Bupa has been exposed for breaches in pain management, palliative care, nutrition, cleanliness, infection control, resident dignity and emotional support.
Bupa is apologetic for its breaches over the past four years, which include its worst home in Roseville failing 31 of the 44 benchmarks set by the federal government’s aged care watchdog during spot checks.
Berry and Seaforth Bupa homes had such shocking histories of neglect and mismanagement of patient care their licences to operate were ripped up in January but they have been allowed to continue operating until October 26 and 17 respectively.
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Bupa Eden has even failed the dying with palliative care among 30 breaches which also included pain management, hydration and nutrition. The home has been given six months until February to shape up.
While patients in Bupa aged care homes have been living in squalid conditions the company’s chairman and CEO live in multimillion-dollar properties.
Chairman Bryan Mogridge lives in a sprawling $3.65 million home on the exclusive island of Waiheke, off Auckland, and CEO Hisham El-Ansary lives in a gated five-bedroom, four-bathroom mansion in Brighton, Victoria, estimated to be worth more than $8.4 million.
Combined Pensioner and Superannuation Association spokesman Paul Versteege denounced the noncompliance system “a joke” for allowing the health care giant to continue operating despite the serious failures.
“Bupa is a for-profit provider [so] the law says they have to put their shareholders first — not the people they care for,” he said.
“The fact that basically half of Bupa's nursing homes in NSW are seriously non-compliant shows it deliberately cuts every corner twice to reduce operating costs and shows that the current compliance system with its sanctions and threats to revoke operating licences is an absolute joke.
“Every time the regulator slaps a notice on Bupa, it just laughs, because it knows it's too big to fail.
“The only thing that will pull bullies like Bupa into line is, first, to hit its bottom line with hefty fines.”
He suggested Bupa executives should also be held personally liable for failures in nursing home care.
The need for aged care is increasing in Australia with 214,000 requiring help between 2015 and 2016.
Bupa operates 78 care homes across Australia servicing more than 7400 elderly people in need.
The Australian arm underwent restructuring this year with the UK headquarters calling out its counterpart for underperforming, even though Australia and New Zealand accounted for 40 per cent of global revenue of $22.38 billion in 2017.
CATALOGUE OF FAILURES
The Daily Telegraph found 15 Bupa nursing homes failed to meet expected outcomes in unannounced spot checks in the past four years.
New regulator Aged Care Quality And Safety Commission found failures in nine since January — including those at Ashbury, Ashfield, Bankstown, Bateau Bay on the Central Coast, Berry, Dural, Eden, Seaforth and Roseville.
Berry, Bateau Bay, Seaforth and Eden also failed to meet all of the 44 expected quality benchmarks in the previous year, as well as Greenacre, Griffith, Maroubra and St Ives.
Bankstown failed nine benchmarks in January with authorities stating: “Failure to meet two of these expected outcomes has placed the safety, health or wellbeing of a care recipient at serious risk.”
Kathy Danvers-Baker says she will never forget the harrowing moment she found her father collapsed at Bupa’s Eden facility.
“I thought I was going to have to make some horrible decisions,” she said.
She found her father, retired farmer John Danvers, 76, passed out lying on his shoulder with his head on the floor, last February.
She begged staff three times to call an ambulance to take him to hospital.
“I found him passed out and thought he was deceased,” she said.
“He was severely dehydrated and delirious. There were pills under his bed that they were supposed to give him that he had knocked off the bedside table when he tried to reach them.
On arrival at South East Regional Hospital she was told her father would not survive.
“I thought we’d be safe with Bupa, it has this amazing reputation as being one of the most professional health care providers but what goes on inside the homes don’t match their glossy booklets,” Ms Danvers-Baker said.
“For some of the staff, it was just a job, there was a severe lack of care for residents.”
She has since moved her father to a nearby home in the Bega Valley.
“I’d never put anyone in one of their homes.
“Dad is much happier now at the different home in Bega,” she said.
Truck driver Ray Tilley, 56, and his family were angered over the care his late mother Sybil, 90, received for two years to May at a Bupa aged care home in Baulkham Hills.
AGED CARE COMPLAINT? CONTACT: danielle.gusmaroli@news.com.au
He said she suffered repeat unreported falls resulting in serious head injuries and food was dumped on her dinner tray when she could not use her hands to feed herself.
“A lot of it — which really I found scary — was the ability to assess injuries and take action on that injury,” he said.
“The registered nurse on duty would ring me to say that mum’s had a fall (and asked) do you want us to send her to hospital? I said ‘mate, why are you asking me? I can’t see her injuries’, I said ‘you’re a registered nurse — why can’t you make this call’?” Mr Tilley said staff at the facility regularly complained of under funding and a shift shortage.
BUPA SORRY
Bupa chiefs maintained the majority of its homes are operating well and in compliance with standards.
“Where we haven’t met the required standards in some of our homes, we’re sorry and are committed to making the necessary improvements to put things right,” a spokesman said.
“Fixing some of these issues takes time, but we are already starting to see genuine progress across these homes.
“We’re working closely with the Department of Health and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission to restore confidence and ensure compliance in all our homes. Over the past year, we’ve invested many millions of dollars in our aged care business. This has included additional staffing, resources and training.”
Minister for Health Care and Senior Australians Richard Colbeck denounced the persistent failures as unacceptable and said the department is monitoring Bupa’s national bid to return services to compliance.
“Persistent failure to meet aged care quality and safety standards is simply unacceptable and approved providers must either return to compliance or have their status revoked,” he said.
BUPA CHARGED FOR SERVICES NOT DELIVERED
The consumer watchdog ACCC launched federal court proceedings against Bupa, alleging it invoiced 4,396 elderly patients across 21 aged care homes up to $100 a day for extra services it did not fully provide.
Between December 12, 2007 and February 22, 2018, the commission claims BUPA collected fees for a package of services that included airconditioning, access to audio books, physiotherapy rooms, cooked breakfasts and escorts for day trips and appointments.
The commission accuses BUPA of engaging in misleading or deceptive conduct for extra services that were partly or not available.
These included charging patients at Queenspark for private gardening areas, and ice machines at Mosman, as well as dry cleaning and special garment care, physiotherapy, hydrotherapy.
Dementia residents at Bankstown were charged for smart rooms that were not available, while the Caulfield residence charged for hydro baths with hydraulic control.
At Coburg residents were charged for carpet and superior toilets and furniture and a talking book library.
Berwick residents were charged three hot dishes excluding porridge at breakfast and favourite meals twice a week and fishing trips.
The report states: “The representations were false, misleading or deceptive and likely to mislead.
“Not all specified extra services were available at the relevant facilities … Even when they were charged for them and the invoices were paid.
“Further, BUPA accepted payment of extra service fees at a time there were reasonable grounds for believing it would not be able to supply all of the extra services”.
Bupa says it has compensated current residents $3 million to date and notified the watchdog of its conduct, but an ACCC spokesman said that self-reporting and taking remedial action was not always enough to avoid litigation.
AGED CARE COMPLAINT? CONTACT: danielle.gusmaroli@news.com.au
BUPA’S NURSING HOME SHAME FILE
BUPA BANKSTOWN
January 2019: Failed nine benchmarks, including hydration, infection control, catering and cleaning.
On 5 February 2019 Department of Health notified of decision that the failure to meet two of the expected outcomes placed the safety of a resident at “serious” risk.
Accredited to 20 April 2020
BUPA ASHBURY
May 2019: Failed one of the 44 expected benchmarks, — human resource management. Accredited to 11 August 2022.
BUPA ASHFIELD
May 2019: Failed two benchmarks — medication management and privacy and dignity. Accredited to July 21 2022
BUPA BERRY
March 2019: Failed 13 benchmarks including nutrition and hydration, continence care, privacy and dignity, catering and cleaning.
Accredited October 26 2020
BUPA DURAL
March 2019: Failed four benchmarks including clinical care, nutrition and hydration.
Accredited: March 2020
BUPA EDEN
March 2019: Failed 30 benchmarks including clinical care, specialised nursing care needs, pain management, palliative care, nutrition and hydration, skin care, continence management, behavioural management, emotional support, privacy and dignity, leisure interests and activities, cultural and spiritual life, fire, security and other emergencies.
In April the Department of Health notified of failure to meet two outcomes placing residents at “serious” risk.
Accredited February 2020
BUPA SEAFORTH
April 2019: Failed 26 benchmarks including clinical care, specialised nursing care needs, medication management, pain management, skin care, continence management, behavioural management, emotional support, privacy and dignity, cultural and spiritual life, choice and decision making and infection control.
Accredited October 2019
BUPA BATEAU BAY
May 2019: Failed one benchmark — behavioural management.
BUPA ROSEVILLE
May 2019: Roseville failed 31 benchmarks including clinical care, specialised nursing care needs, medication management, pain management, skin care, continence management, behavioural management, emotional support, privacy and dignity, cultural and spiritual life, choice and decision making and infection control.
Accredited 13 July 2020
BUPA GREENACRE
February 2018: Failed one benchmark — catering, cleaning and laundry
Accredited October 2021
BUPA GRIFFITH
November 2018: Failed 13 benchmarks including regulatory compliance, clinical care, medication management, pain management, continence management and infection control.
Accredited September 2019.
BUPA MAROUBRA
August 2018: Failed three benchmarks — clinical, skin care and behavioural.
Accredited 7 November 2020.
BUPA ST IVES
May 2018: Failed four benchmarks — education and staff developments, human resource management, medication management and behavioural management.
Accredited August 2020
BUPA TUMUT
September 2017: Failed one benchmark — Behavioural management.
Accredited November 2020
BUPA POTTSVILLE BEACH
April 2016: Failed three benchmarks — human resource management, clinical care and choice and decision making.
Accredited until July 2019 and in March this year was deemed fully compliant and accredited until July 2021.