Covid horror at aged care facility laid bare in coronial hearing

Distressing details have emerged in court about a shocking outbreak at a Victorian facility, with reports of “tendons showing” in malnourished patients.

Elderly residents at Australia’s worst single-site outbreak, St Basil’s Home for the Aged, were dehydrated and “starving” after the workforce was stood down last year, a court has heard.

The Coroners Court of Victoria will investigate the circumstances of 50 deaths from Covid-19 at the aged-care home in July and August last year, with a pre-inquest hearing held on Wednesday.

The first case at the 150-bed Fawkner facility in Melbourne was a staff member who tested positive on July 8, counsel assisting the coroner Peter Rozen QC told the court.

Before the outbreak, families and residents were happy with the care provided by St Basil’s, which is owned by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia. But the home and the federal government had a “misplaced confidence” in its ability to handle the pandemic, Mr Rozen said.

They declined help from surge workforce provider Aspen until it was too late to provide a smooth handover, he said.

When Aspen did bring in a workforce to entirely replace the St Basil’s staff, who were ordered to isolate, they had “little to no experience” in aged care and didn’t know how to perform basic tasks such as showering residents.

Aspen workers were traumatised and a dozen refused to show up for work, the court heard. By the time the evacuation of residents to hospitals began on July 24, the elderly patients were malnourished, dehydrated, in poor general health and had pressure sores, Mr Rozen said.

A hospital nurse told him of the condition of one resident: “When I checked her I observed a pressure sore. I hadn’t seen an injury like that in 20 years. It hadn’t been dressed; it looked nasty. You were able to see into the wound, and see the tendon.”

Another frontline worker told him “we were struggling to feed residents”, with concerns about residents “starving to death”, Mr Rozen said.

The inquest will examine the response of authorities: St Basil’s management; the federal government, which is responsible for aged care; and the Victorian government, which was managing the state’s response to the pandemic.

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