Commissioner responds to maggots found in the mouth of an aged care patient

BY JARROD MELMETH

Following calls from Jayne Carter, the daughter of a woman who was found with maggots in her mouth at a Raymond Terrace aged care facility for an inquiry into the aged care sector, Opal's Managing Director, Gary Barnier has told the ABC that the company would welcome the inquest.

Ms Carter was told of the incident by management, the day before her mother, Shirley Carter died.

Mr Barnier also said the palliative standards at the time of the incident were not followed.

"Staff were terminated, but it was the management of the home that was terminated.

"We have now a very distressed person who feels she deserved better and we should have done better, and I completely accept that," Mr Barnier said.

In a statement by the Aged Care Complaints Commissioner, Commissioner Rae Lamb said she has challenged service providers to say more about what they do in response to complaints.

"I can’t comment on the case, but in all cases, we work with the complainant and the service to ensure whatever has happened is addressed and appropriate action is taken to fix it.

"Let people know about the actions they take to improve care and services.

"Although I can’t speak about individual complaints publicly, we do provide full information to the people involved.  Many services also give people a lot of information about action taken, but they don’t talk about it more publicly and what I am saying is that there are opportunities for services to do that without breaching people’s privacy.

"In general terms, we have a number of ways to handle complaints, ranging from working directly with the parties to get a matter resolved through to investigations. If a provider does not make the necessary changes I can direct that it does, and we can make referrals to the Department for consideration of compliance action if a provider continues to not meet its responsibilities.

"We always encourage providers to apologise as well as taking whatever action is needed to address a matter," Ms Lamb said.

Rae Lamb. Photo: Australian Ageing Agenda