Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission failed to share intel on St Basil’s COVID-19 outbreak
The St Basil’s coronavirus outbreak in Fawkner has been one of the most devastating in Melbourne. It has now emerged this one vital detail might have cost crucial days.
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The aged care watchdog knew there had been a coronavirus outbreak at the troubled St Basil’s facility but failed to raise the alarm with the federal government.
The bungle meant it took four days before a federal response was launched at the Fawkner home, where the deadly outbreak has now been connected to 169 cases of COVID-19.
Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck and Health Department secretary Professor Brendan Murphy told a Senate inquiry last week that they were not aware there had been a positive case at St Basil’s until July 14.
Senator Colbeck said his department was made aware on that date by Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services and “immediately stood up our systems”.
Prof Murphy said: “The Victorian public health unit had some delays in getting tests back and analysing and identifying that this was an aged care outbreak, and that was a significant factor in this case.”
Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner Janet Anderson also said she was not aware of the St Basil’s positive case until July 14.
But in a letter to the Senate committee, sent late on Friday, Ms Anderson confirmed the commission knew on July 10 that a St Basil’s staff member had tested positive on July 8.
Ms Anderson told the committee that a St Basil’s representative flagged the positive test during a phone survey which was conducted with every Victorian facility to check their COVID-19 response plans.
“The regulatory official from the commission who made the assessment contact referred the service’s responses to the commission’s COVID-19 response team and this information was escalated internally and recorded in the commission’s daily COVID-19 confirmed case tracker,” she wrote.
“The commission did not escalate the matter externally at the time because the St Basil’s representative had confirmed in the interview that they had advised the (Victorian public health unit) of the outbreak.”
Scott Morrison said on Monday that the revelations were “not good”.
“I am concerned about that breakdown in the communications,” the Prime Minister said.
He said he was “undertaking further inquiries” to determine what went wrong.
“I understand the processes that led to that have been changed,” Mr Morrison said.
“We will be following that through with the commissioner and at the end of the day, they’re an independent statutory office, they know their responsibilities and they need to live up to them.”
Mr Morrison said the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre had since enabled better co-ordination and integration of the response to aged care outbreaks between all state and federal agencies.
St Basil’s was thrown into crisis when its entire workforce was stood down by Victorian authorities because they had either been diagnosed with coronavirus or were close contacts.
Federal authorities then had to scramble to find a new workforce to run the facility.
The Herald Sun revealed earlier this month that residents were starving and dehydrated before an urgent intervention to transfer them to hospital.
Ms Anderson said the St Basil’s representative confirmed in the phone survey that they had read a Commonwealth action plan for the first 24 hours of a COVID-19 outbreak, which required them to alert the federal Health Department and lock down the facility within 30 minutes.
“The commission is not the first responder to an outbreak in an aged care facility,” she said.
The Herald Sun understands Senator Colbeck became aware of the oversight on Friday morning.
He said he had ensured “full and complete disclosure” to alert the Senate committee, and that he had ordered “corrective action” to prevent future breakdowns in communication.
Ms Anderson told the committee that the commission “now has arrangements in place to confirm immediately with the commonwealth Department of Health that they have been directly notified by the affected aged care service of any outbreak at that service that comes to the commission’s attention by whatever means”.
Labor aged care spokeswoman Julie Collins said Mr Colbeck needed to explain when he became aware of the “catastrophic” bungle.
“This catastrophic communications failure led to a potentially deadly delay in responding to the outbreak of COVID-19 at St Basil’s,” she said.
“Time and time again the Morrison Government has been warned about information sharing failures between its regulator and the Department of Health but has not acted.
“We are now seeing the tragic and avoidable consequences of not properly heeding these warnings.
“The Minister for Aged Care must reveal today when he became aware the regulator did have knowledge of the outbreak of COVID-19 at St Basil’s but failed to pass it on.”
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