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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-12-02 Daily Xml
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Kindred Living Aged Care

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (14:50): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Health and Wellbeing, as minister for ageing, another question about the Kindred Living Aged Care facility at Whyalla.

Leave granted.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: As the chamber knows, I attended the facility last month with Mr Peter Strawbridge, the husband of a severely demented woman who lives there and who contracted Norwegian scabies. Mr Strawbridge, other residents and staff at Kindred Living also contracted the contagious infection.

The Nine Network's A Current Affair aired a harrowing story on the scabies outbreak. Following that media report, and after previously ignoring a number of complaints from workers at the facility, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission finally launched an investigation into the outbreak, which I am told included unannounced visits.

Disturbingly, management at Kindred Living have now embarked on a witch-hunt to try to find the brave whistleblowers who approached me in distress with their concerns after management refused to act on them. Without any evidence, they have already started to bully one staff member, accusing her of breaching patient confidentiality. She is totally innocent of those charges. My question to the minister is:

1. Does the minister have concerns that Kindred Living appears to be ignoring the rights of whistleblowers that have been enshrined by legislation passed last year?

2. Has the minister had further contact with the federal Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians, Richard Colbeck, and also the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:51): I thank the honourable member for his question. I'm not sure which legislation he is referring to that might have the whistleblower legislation, whether that is the legislation under which the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission is established. However, it certainly wouldn't surprise me that the federal legislation, like many similar state pieces of legislation, has provisions against victimisation.

In terms of good corporate governance, good clinical governance of facilities, I believe all services—public and private health services and public and private aged-care services—need to be open to complaints and that there need to be appropriate mechanisms to escalate issues.

With regard to the member's question in relation to engaging with the federal minister, as I previously advised the house, my office was in contact with the federal minister. I have not had an update in terms of progress on the matter, but I certainly share the honourable member's concern that matters should be appropriately addressed and that people who raise complaints should not be victimised for doing so.

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