Aged Care Commissioner reports on aboriginal death in NT aged care facility

The Howard government was repeatedly warned to introduce regulations to fix the failings that led to the death of Dulcie Brumby, who last year fell into a fire pit at a remote Aboriginal aged care facility in central Australia, according to a report in The Australian.

It says that in a report to the Rudd Government, by Aged Care Commissioner Rhonda Parker, it found a “series of recurrent failings in quality” at the facility in Docker River, 300km west of Uluru.

Problems included over-medication, under-medication and attacks on staff and residents, who also were suffering infections because of dog faeces in their rooms. Up to 40 dogs lived in the home.

Ms Parker’s report, which was handed to Brumby’s family just before Christmas, looks at what the Aged Care Department was told after consultant Maggie Kavanagh wrote in May 2005 complaining of substandard conditions and a lack of supervision.

Ms Parker says the department sought to address concerns raised by Ms Kavanagh but was “limited in its capacity to act because the service sits outside the Act, restricting both the department’s scope to sanction and/or use existing complaints mechanisms.

“This has been acknowledged in departmental forums and documents for years. The failure to develop and evolve this avant-garde program to provide it with protective mechanisms and program support to ensure consistent quality, despite repeated commitments from departmental forums to do so, is unacceptable.”

A review was undertaken in August 2005 but it took until this year for any action to address the conditions.
The department did not provide any feedback to Ms Kavanagh in response to her complaint.

The outrage triggered by the 72-year-old’s death expedited moves to make the Aboriginal aged care sector subject to Federal regulation for the first time.

Millions of dollars will be pumped into new buildings, refurbishments, extensions, staff housing and maintenance, as well as the hiring of new staff for at least 30 substandard homes.

The Rudd Government has funded the installation of two interim fire safety protection devices at Docker River, and is providing funding for the installation of fire-pit protection devices at 11 other indigenous-run homes. Minister for Ageing Justine Elliot described the conditions at Docker Rover as “distressing and unacceptable” and “clearly in need of improvement”.