Nurse says St Basil’s in ‘chaos’ as coronavirus swept nursing home
A senior nurse at a Melbourne nursing home where 45 residents died of coronavirus has detailed ‘chaos’ at the aged care facility.
A Melbourne aged care home where dozens of residents died of coronavirus and others from neglect was in “chaos”, a court has been told.
The former deputy director of nursing at St Basil’s aged care, Milena Avramovic, testified at a coronial inquest into the deaths of residents on Monday.
Five residents at the Fawner facility died of neglect while 45 died of Covid-19 in July and August 2020, during Victoria’s second wave.
It was one of the country’s deadliest outbreaks at an aged care facility, with a fatality rate of 48 per cent.
Ms Avramovic worked at the facility between 2015 and August 2020, describing the situation at the facility as “chaos”.
“It was chaos, it was so much to do, it was a pandemic,” she told the inquest.
“We all worked so hard under huge pressure.”
She said she doesn’t believe she could ever work in aged care again.
“What happened at St Basil’s - it destroyed me,” the senior nurse said.
“It destroyed me psychologically, emotionally, socially and financially.”
Even before a positive case was recorded at the facility they struggled to get adequate personal protective equipment, Ms Avramovic said.
She was also quizzed about the handover process on July 22, after the state’s chief health officer Brett Sutton ordered staff out of the home after deeming the workforce close contacts of those with coronavirus.
This decision made the federal government send in a replacement “surge” workforce, composed of agency workers from Aspen.
The inquest was previously told this replacement workforce was inadequate and unable to care for the residents at St Basil’s, with all residents evacuated to hospital on July 31.
But Ms Avramovic denied claims from Aspen nurses that St Basil’s staff weren’t listening to them about the handover process.
“I can say nothing at all. We were so open and grateful for them coming and helping us. It never happened … I can’t believe that,” the nurse said.
But the nurse wanted health authorities to give clear directives about testing residents following a positive case in a staff member.
“We were actually helpless. We wanted to do things faster and it was a bit of a panic.”
They couldn’t afford to wait the days it took for tests to be organised and went to GPs and hospitals for help, she said.
But when shown a federal document about how aged care homes should manage a Covid-19 outbreak in the first 24 hours published on June 29, 2020, she said she believed she read a different one at the end of May.
She also denied claims from other workers aired at the inquest that staff were told not to wear masks.
Aspen clinical care responder Jacinta MacCormack had 41 years of experience as a registered nurse and was one of the workers who replaced St Basil’s staff.
She described it as a “warzone” after the takeover and said many of the surge workforce had limited experience.
“In this warzone - I just did what I thought was right at the time,” she told the court.
She said they didn’t have the correct protective equipment and there were not enough staff to help.
In her statement, she said St Basil’s staff were initially welcoming to the Aspen workers, but after they were stood down there was “anger and slight hostility”.
Nicholas Barboussas earlier told the court he got a call from the replacement communications team based in Adelaide who told him his elderly father was “tucked away” in his room at St Basil’s.
“I was told that Dad was fine and was in his room and I was absolutely gobsmacked to say the least,” he said.
“It was quite a shattering moment.”
That’s because his 79-year-old father Paul was in the Northern Hospital and battling coronavirus, which he later died of.
He was able to Facetime his father in hospital and said that was the last time they saw each other before his death and his dad smiled.
“Was it a smile he got out of the facility...that’s something I’ll ponder for the rest of my life I guess”
The inquest continues in front of State Coroner John Cain.