Earle Haven Retirement Village: Fury, valuables stripped, elderly residents in limbo as retirement home shuts
Patient records and drugs were stripped from a nursing home as 70 frail residents were left homeless.
Patient records, drugs and even cleaning supplies were stripped from a Gold Coast aged-care home that abruptly shut down, forcing the emergency evacuation of more than 70 residents, the Queensland government says.
Gold Coast aged care is at “full capacity” after 71 elderly Queenslanders were left homeless when a dispute over money saw Earle Haven Retirement Village at Nerang dramatically shut down.
Vulnerable and frail residents were without a home or a bed until as late as midnight last night. Police, paramedics, and health workers on Thursday spent eight hours moving distressed residents to temporary beds.
Triple 0 call alerted authorities.
Queensland Health Minister Steven Miles was “utterly disgusted” by what happened at the Earle Haven.
The federal government has promised a full investigation into the facility’s owner and an aged-care contractor, who are in dispute over money, as Mr Miles accused them of walking out on 70 high-care residents.
Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck says it appears a subcontractor trusted to nurse, feed and support the home’s high-care residents withdrew all services without notice and stripped the place.
I will be looking to bring the full force possible of action onto those who put residents of Earle Haven in such a terrible position — it is simply unacceptable,” Senator Colbeck said on Friday.
Triple 0 call alerted authorities.
Mr Miles said residents faced a distressing 11-hour operation to find them emergency beds elsewhere and called their evacuation a “rescue”.
He said a staff member called triple-zero to report the situation about 2pm on Thursday, and dozens of paramedics and health workers faced a chaotic scene when they arrived.
Bedridden residents, and some with dementia, didn’t have the level of care they needed, even though some staff stayed behind to look after them.
“It should never have happened,” Mr Miles said. “There’s no excuse for taking their patient records, no excuse for taking their pharmaceuticals, for taking their mop buckets, for taking the gloves that staff would use to help them toilet and shower.
“The behaviour here, whoever is responsible, is just disgusting.”
He said patient records vanished leaving paramedics and doctors scrambling to know how best to treat and care for residents.
“As I understand it, store room after store room was cleared of anything that could be considered valuable.
“Our health staff had to reconstruct health histories and medication requirements for the residents, in order to stabilise them and provide them with their healthcare needs.”
Mr Miles said police would be looking at whether any offences had been committed.
‘A disaster’
Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union Secretary Beth Mohle said the closure is a disaster which has put aged care capacity on the Gold Coast at breaking point.
“All those who helped yesterday did an extraordinary job to find beds but now that would put the Gold Coast at capacity and what space there was is gone now,” Ms Mohle said.
“People are in nursing homes because they need nursing they’re not there by choice,” Ms Mohle said, “These people are incredibly frail — some are bedridden, some had dementia, it’s so distressing for them and their families.”
While emergency services were trying to find beds, distressed residents were in limbo until as late as midnight last night, and there is no indication of how long they will need to stay in temporary facilities until they can find a permanent home.
Samantha Rickards says her grandmother was among those moved and the elderly woman was distressed.
But she said staff who were at work on Thursday continued to care for residents. “It’s distressing for the residents because they are all older, they don’t know what’s going on, a lot of them have dementia, but the staff have been amazing,” she told the ABC.
“It’s sad because I get to see her in this situation but I’m angry that they have allowed this to happen.”
Nurses were gobsmacked by the forced evacuation.
But money appeared to be at the heart of the matter.
The Australian understands there was a dispute between the owner of the facility, People Care, and medical staff contractor Help Street and employees of the nursing home were informed the facility would be shut down.
Village owner People Care says it decided to terminate its contract with HelpStreet. It says it gave the contractor until August 9 to vacate the property, but HelpStreet “decided to leave earlier”.
HelpStreet says People Care failed to pay it for its services and that meant staff were told not to show up for work on Thursday.
“We tried desperately over the last two days to confirm that we would receive payment. This month we have not received anything,” a HelpStreet spokesman told the ABC.
People Care owner Arthur Miller has denied that, saying assurances were given that wages for the final month would be covered.
“Earle Haven Retirement has no debt, we have all the money for employees but there are a lot of things we have to take care of,” Mr Miller told The Gold Coast Bulletin.
‘It shouldn’t have come to this’
Mr Miles said federal aged-care regulators must determine how a commercial dispute led to the abandonment of frail, elderly people.
“At the end of the day, they are charged with taking care of 70-odd vulnerable Queenslanders, they make a profit from caring for 70-odd vulnerable Queenslanders.
“Whatever their internal disputes, there is no excuse for just walking out on them.”
“The plans we put in place were ultimately the disaster management, the emergency plans, we have for cyclones and floods. It shouldn’t have to come to this.”
Dr Jeremy Wellwood from Gold Coast Health said he learned about 2pm Thursday about what was unfolding at the centre, and it quickly became clear patient safety was at risk.
“There was inadequate staff to care for the patients,” he told reporters on Friday.
“It was our priority to make sure these elderly frail residents were safe and were adequately cared for. We’re so grateful we found other locations for them.
“This was a massive undertaking to transfer this number of patients …”
‘Pandemonium’
The Queensland Nurses Union described scenes of “pandemonium”, with some staff ordered to leave the facility as medical equipment was being removed.
Ms Mohle said it was an unprecedented failure in the aged-care system despite some staff refusing to leave and others who used to work there showing up to help when they heard what was happening.
Earle Haven also has residents who live independently. They haven’t been affected and remain in their homes.
The aged-care residents are now in limbo, with no permanent homes. They are being cared for in other homes on the Gold Coast, with three taken to hospital as a precaution.
with AAP
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