Aged care scandals erupt again

by Peter Mac

Seven months after the horrifying Kenilworth nursing home scandal, the 
Minister for Aged Care, Senator Bronwyn Bishop, finds herself once again 
plunged into controversy. This time it's over the reappointment of her 
Liberal Party campaign director, John Lang, to a position on the 
influential Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency (ACSAA). The 
Agency is responsible for authorising the accreditation of nursing homes. 
Failure to gain accreditation may result in the loss of millions of dollars 
of Federal funding.

Senator Bishop airily dismissed suggestions of a conflict of interest in 
her appointment of Mr Lang. "The fact that someone is a friend or a 
political ally of mine should not disqualify them from playing a national 
leadership role in raising the standard of care provided for older 
Australians", she declared severely.

But the criticism of Mr Lang's appointment accompanied revelations that a 
Sydney nursing home had escaped imposition of sanctions by the ACSAA, 
despite the highly controversial deaths of two patients.

The home is one of two such institutions operated by a firm owned by Mrs 
Millie Phillips, another friend of the Minister and Liberal Party 
contributor.

Staff and others had made repeated and long-standing complaints about 
substandard facilities and treatment regimes at both homes which had failed 
to pass accreditation tests by the end of last year.

However, ACSAA assessors are said to have told the staff of one of the 
homes that "the owner knows people, nothing will be done". Both homes were 
subsequently given generous reprieves of several months to achieve 
accreditation standard.

Senator Bishop also dismissed any suggestion that an apparent shortfall of 
some $1.3 billion in the Howard Government's budget allocation for aged 
care would not be made good, or that the ACSAA might not be entirely 
independent.

Political and bureaucratic influence

But not everyone agrees with the Minister. The director of the Australian 
Nursing Homes and Extended Care Association, Mr Rod Young, last week 
expressed concern about political and bureaucratic influence within the 
ACSAA.

He pointed out that the ACSAA was originally intended to act as an 
independent body charged with achieving the highest possible standards in 
aged care, but is now effectively functioning as an arm of Senator Bishop's 
Department.

This, said Mr Young, is a complete abrogation of the original intentions of 
the ACSAA. He recommended that consumer groups, unions and health care 
providers have a much stronger involvement in the appointment of ACSAA 
Board members.

The situation has striking parallels with the controversy surrounding the 
Minister for Health, Dr Wooldridge, over his "restructuring" of the 
Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee. This committee, like the ACSAA, 
has enormous responsibility in the field of public health, but is finding 
its professional independence under threat.

With these controversies erupting, and a legal battle looming with the 
Australian Medical Association, the Federal Government is finding itself 
increasingly at odds with those who are working in the areas of health and 
aged care.