Delirious former professor was acutely dehydrated, aged care royal commission told

Wife tells inquiry of immediate decline of eminent psychology professor who had helped millions.

Neville King.

Neville King was an eminent professor of psychology at Monash University. His research in cognitive behaviour therapy had helped millions of people, and the journal of cognitive behaviour he established remains pre-eminent in its field. Last year, he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal, the aged-care royal commission heard on Tuesday.

But a battle with Huntington’s disease, a degenerative brain condition, had seen his health deteriorate in recent years to the point where his wife, Judith, herself battling cancer, could no longer take care of him, and he moved into the Glenara Lakes aged-care home in Launceston last July, where he now resides.

Mrs King told the commission there was an almost immediate deterioration in the 72-year-old’s condition. “Within two weeks, he was not walking properly, he was agitated, he couldn’t look at you in the eyes. He … wasn’t able to hold his attention. His memory was compromised, and it was alarming,” she said.

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A registered nurse, she described her worries about her husband’s increasing delirium, bringing in a specialist doctor who diagnosed that the condition was the result of “acute dehydration”.

“I was stunned that could happen,” Mrs King said. She then put up a fluid chart in her husband’s room. “It took 11 days of haranguing management as to why the chart hadn’t started,’‘ she said.

“There’s a culture in the system of custodial dementia care model from 50 years ago — feed them, change them when they’re wet. That was really the care that was being given,” Mrs King said.

Judith King, who gave evidence at the Royal Commission into Aged Care in Hobart. Picture: Richard Jupe

Glenara Lakes is one of two Southern Cross Care Tasmania nursing homes being examined by the commission this week as it explores the issue of appropriate governance in nursing homes.

In January, Glenara Lakes was found by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission to be non-compliant with expected outcomes for health and personal care, placing residents’ safety, health or wellbeing at serious risk. The commission found staffing numbers had been cut by Southern Cross Care in the preceding months at both Glenara Lakes and another facility, Yaraandoo.

Southern Cross Care Tasmania chief executive Richard Sadek said the organisation, which has nine facilities across Tasmania, had introduced a “path­way to break even” strategy, but denied it had prioritised costs over quality of care: “Our mission is to provide the highest possible care within the funding that’s available and within legislative requirements.”

Under questioning from counsel assisting the commission, Paul Bolster, Mr Sadek admitted that he read monthly and quarterly reports that detailed the amount of commonwealth government funding to which the organisation was entitled, but didn’t read or receive the monthly and quarterly reports about the quality of clinical care being provided at each ­location. “I didn’t see the need when … the review was undertaken by competent experienced executives,” he said.