18 Nov 2009

Were problems missed in rest home audit? Ministry checking

10:04 pm on 18 November 2009

The Ministry of Health says it's looking into its audit procedures following the closure of a Palmerston North aged-care facility.

It's also cracking down on rest homes generally by introducing spot audits and shortening its certification time.

The MidCentral District Health Board shut down the Rose A Lea rest home after a staff member complained about the standard of care, including an instance where a 103-year-old woman was tied to her bed with a sheet.

The ministry found no significant problems when it certified the facility, including the level of care and the building itself, in March.

Following the complaint, however, the DHB did its own investigation and found the building had no current warrant of fitness. It promptly closed the place down and moved the residents out.

It says there were numerous safety hazards, including a hole in the floor, and that the problems could not be quickly remedied.

Ministry quizzed by select committee

MPs on Parliament's health select committee quizzed the ministry over the closure on Wednesday. Deputy director-general Anthony Hill said outside the committee that the ministry was trying to find out if any issues had been missed by the audit.

Quality and safety manager Rose Wall says it will be speaking to the agency subcontracted to do the audit to ensure it was done properly.

Woman's family say staff were wonderful

The family of Myra Letts, the woman who was tied to the bed, are standing by the home's owner, saying staff were wonderful with her care.

Daughter Bev Stone says she is more upset that the whistleblower breached her mother's privacy by releasing photos of her tied to the bed. She says the home went the extra mile with her mother's care, and staff were wonderful; nor could the family see any problem with hygiene at the home.

Bev Stone says that her mother, who died last week, was in the home for five years, and that if she hadn't been there the family would have lost her several years ago.

Grandson Stuart Stone, who says he once worked at the home himself, says he believes the owner - who visited the family on Sunday and apologised - was trying to do the right thing by attempting to straighten Mrs Letts's leg.

DHB says it had no choice

Aged Care Association chief executive Martin Taylor is questioning whether the DHB has been too heavy-handed and acted too fast. The association says Rose A Lea previously had a good reputation.

And the chief executive of aged services provider Bupa Care Services, Dwayne Crombie, says there seems to have been a "witch-hunt".

Mr Crombie says the rest home does not appear to have been given a reasonable chance to rectify the problems. He thinks the DHB was probably being over-cautious given the fallout from Auckland's Belhaven rest home scandal last year.

The DHB's general manager funding, Mike Grant, says the breaches of standards were beyond the ability of the proprietor to remedy in a short time-frame so there was no choice but to close down the home.

He says it appears the home did not have a warrant of fitness at the time of the March audit, but this was not identified in the report at the time.

Conditions 'not fit for dog'

The DHB took action following a complaint from Julie Ireland, who was approached two weeks ago by a caregiver who'd just started at the home.

Ms Ireland says the worker told her she wouldn't let her dog live in such conditions.

"She said there was a cleaner only coming on once a week to do the toilets and bathrooms; they had no spray systems if there was faeces on clothing, it was just a running tap; and the caregivers were just basically bunging everything into one machine. ... the continence bin (for incontinence pads) was only emptied once a week."

There were also concerns about insufficient staff training and lack of registered nurse supervision, with care workers expected to give insulin and morphine when they were not qualified to do so.

Ms Ireland says she does not work at Rose A Lea but has been in the industry for 21 years.

The DHB says Mrs Letts has since died, but says her treatment at the rest home had nothing to do with her death.