St Basil’s inquest: Infected patients sent back to care home

Inquest reveals hospital sent five elderly patients infected with Covid back to St Basil’s Home for the Aged just a few days before the virus overwhelmed the facility.

A hospital in northeast Melbourne sent about five elderly patients infected with Covid back to St Basil’s Home for the Aged just a few days before the virus overwhelmed the facility, an inquest heard.

Maria Loucas said she was told by a doctor at the Austin Hospital in Heidelberg there was nothing they could do to care for her 91-year-old father-in-law, Arthur Samaras, and he along with four or five other residents returned to the Fawkner facility on July 17, 2020.

She told Victoria’s Coroners Court on Thursday she was immediately concerned he would contaminate the other residents but she trusted the doctor’s judgment, which she now regretted.

“I don’t think it was appropriate to send them home because the nursing home is really open,” she said. “I just don’t see how you could prevent it spreading.”

The virus would spread through the facility in the days after the residents returned.

Samaras lived at St Basil’s with his wife of more than 50 years, Anastasia, and Ms Loucas told the inquest he became very agitated when they were separated in an attempt to stop the spread of Covid.

She suffered dementia and short-term memory failure, Ms Loucas said, and Samaras worried she would forget why they were separated and where he was. She (Anastasia) did mention a couple of times she was searching for him even though they were separated,” said Ms Loucas.

Samaras died about 11am on July 21. Ms Loucas said the pair had been happy and well looked after at St Basil’s.

Kathy Bourinaris told the inquest four months after her mother, Fotini Atzarakis, died after contracting Covid at St Basil’s, the aged-care facility called to ask whether the 77-year-old woman wanted to return. She said she felt so sickened by the call she pulled her car over, telling the inquest she had never told her father. “It would have destroyed him,” she said.

Ms Bourinaris told the inquest her late mother had entered St Basil’s on June 29, 2020, in what was meant to be a two-week trial stay. The last time she spoke to her mother was after she had been transferred to the Austin Hospital with Covid-19 on July 19, her mother telling her in Greek “I’m not well”.

At the end of her testimony, Ms Bourinaris broke down in tears as she called for somebody to be held accountable, saying her mother died alone and without dignity.

Former staff at the facility gave conflicting evidence throughout the day on how well St Basil’s managed Covid-19, with some saying proper infection control was not followed.