Residents at St Basil’s Home for the Aged were ‘emaciated’, coronial inquest hears

People at the centre of one of Australia’s deadliest Covid-19 outbreaks suffered through some appalling conditions.

Nurses have laid bare how one Covid-19 case at a Melbourne nursing home quickly descended into “chaos” and became one of Australia’s deadliest outbreaks.

Jacinta MacCormack was one of the clinical care responders sent in after a coronavirus outbreak at St Basil’s Homes for the Aged.

She told a coronial inquest on Tuesday that it was obvious from the moment she started seeing residents on July 22 last year they were in desperate need of care.

“You could just tell they didn't have the nutrition, the food that they needed,” Ms MacCormack said.

“There was a couple that actually looked quite emaciated, their hips were sticking out.”

The five-week coronial inquest into the deaths of residents at St Basil‘s will hear from about 65 witnesses. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Sarah Matray

Ms MacCormack – who has been a nurse for 41 years – also told the court one patient who had not been properly cared for needed to be immediately transferred to hospital.

Five residents at the centre in Melbourne’s northern suburbs died of neglect while 45 died of Covid-19, in one of the country’s deadliest outbreaks at an aged care home.

Ms MacCormack was also quizzed about the handover process, after the state’s chief health officer Brett Sutton ordered staff out of the home, deeming the workforce close contacts.

She told the court that the transition was “not comfortable at all” and workers at the aged care home were “hostile” towards handover staff.

“Once it was ascertained that staff were going to be stood down the whole atmosphere within the centre changed, the management were quite hostile,” Ms MacCormack said.

“They were not forthcoming with giving us information we needed to make the transition easier.

“You could just feel it in the air, it was not pleasant, it was not comfortable at all.”

St Basil’s Home for the Aged recorded its first positive Covid-19 case on July 9 last year. Picture: Jason Edwards.

Nurse Angela Cox also told the inquest the centre was “chaotic” when she stepped in to help.

“There were trolleys everywhere, there were people donning and doffing PPE in the corridors,” she said.

“There were residents wandering about – it was just chaos – there were a lot of people, a lot of noise.”

The centre recorded its first positive Covid-19 case on July 9, before St Basil’s staff were then furloughed and replaced by Aspen Medical agency workers on July 22.

Australian chief nursing and midwifery officer Alison McMillian was questioned about the state of the facility after she had inspected it during the handover process.

The inquest heard she was included in on an email to DHHS officials whereby Northern Health doctor Sandra Brown had visited the home on July 23 and found a “dire” situation.

In an email tendered to the inquest, Dr Brown had written about concerns with residents not being fed and laying in soiled beds, as well as their medication not being delivered and a lack of cleaning.

Five residents at St Basil’s died of neglect while 45 died of Covid-19. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Staff had poor understanding of infection control measures and were unaware of how to shower someone, the bombshell email revealed.

Counsel assisting QC Peter Rozen quizzed Ms McMillian about the concerning email, saying: “This is the same home that you had assessed just the previous day as being fit for purpose?”

Ms McMillan replied: “Yes”.

“So it would have been very concerning to see this assessment of that home a little more than a day after you left it,” Mr Rozen asked.

“Yes,” Ms McMillian answered again.

Ms McMillian – who counsel assisting described as “the senior most Commonwealth officer present in Melbourne who was involved in the practical of St Basil’s” – told the inquest it wasn’t until July 26 when she inspected the centre again, at the request of Brendan Murphy, who was the Department of Health secretary at the time.

Nurses have detailed concerning experiences at St Basil's in an inquest into 50 deaths at the centre. Picture: Nicki Connolly

But Ms McMillian said the management of an outbreak in an aged care facility was the responsibility of the public health unit.

“I went there at the request of the minister and senior executives in the department Commonwealth department of health but that there is nothing within my role as described in my job description that makes me responsible for the operations of a residential aged care facility,” she told the inquest.

“My role at that time was I was seconded to the Department of Health and Human Services to work with them in liaising between emergency management in Victoria and the Department of Health and Human Services, with a particular focus on the outbreaks that were occurring in the public health.”

All residents were evacuated to hospital on July 31.

The five-week coronial inquest into the deaths of residents at St Basil‘s will hear from about 65 witnesses, including nurses, centre managers and family members of the loved ones who died.

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