"Response to complaint by aged care provider"

My elderly parent is in aged care in Korumburra a small town in South Gippsland, Victoria. They have been moved there from a previous facility which was very convenient location for everyone visiting them, as my parent still had a house in town that could be used by both themselves and visitors, a place they loved to be and share with their family.  

The decision was made by family members who lived nearby, without consultation, an ongoing complaint my siblings have against the decision makers.  

This is in part a story of a sibling who happened to have medical power of attorney.

My partner and I went to visit my parent their nursing home, to take them down to their house near the sea and stay overnight, a practice we have followed for over 12 months and that my parent enjoys enormously. The day before we had told staff of our intentions and I felt they were helpful and supportive.

We turned up the next day to find a young staff member in an apparent high start of distress as they had been, I believe, abused by the family medical decision maker who did not want my parent to leave the premises, a decision they are not legally empowered to make, them having no guardianship responsibility. The carer was seemingly so stressed and confused they gave us a wrong prescription, and that caused us and staff hours of waiting, extra travel and stress sorting this out, once we were able to finally leave. The impact of us of witnessing the aftermath, the poor staff member’s apparent incomprehension and shock was very disturbing, and it generated unease and trepidation.

You might think the nursing home management would have been most apologetic when the details of this incident were brought to their attention which I made sure of doing in an online expression of concern. That was my expectation, but sadly for me, it was not the case in my opinion. As I recall it, senior management refused to discuss the matter, suggesting first it was a family concern and we should just have a chat between ourselves to resolve it.

I believe family conflict and division are commonplace and often made worse when parents require full time care, and it is an increasing problem that needs to be dealt with sensitively by nursing homes. In this situation, it seems senior management refused to engage at all in hearing my concerns, and after their initial unhelpful suggestion of talking it over with the family, went onto compound what I feel is their error by asserting that I had no authority to discuss the incident with them as I was not a power of attorney. We are talking about a private matter between the nursing home and me over the inconvenience and stress we had suffered because the nursing home provider chose to notify someone that we were taking a resident out overnight, a phone call I believe they were not legally required to make. 

My major worry was if this happened again and how to prevent but it in my opinion, senior management did not appreciate this, persisting in their refusal to discuss the issues. Later I felt they played the privacy card, citing various pieces of legislation that they claimed precluded them from talking to me, once again, I believe completely unfounded and irrelevant to the particular matter at hand.

The senior management persists in refusing to address the issues raised by me and I have had to go through the processes of complaint to the various agencies state and federal appointed to field such communications.

In general the level of care and concern shown by the front line staff at the nursing home is of a high standard. I feel they are helpful and freely discuss the care of my parent with me, and facilitate, even encourage, taking them away overnight, all this without asking if I have a power of attorney or raising concern of privacy. I feel it is such a disconnect between the open, honest transparency at face to face level and the apparent blank refusal and obfuscation on the part of the executive of the organisation.

I feel most unhappy with the treatment I feel I have received at the hands of senior management and hope my experience is the unexplained exception to what I feel is a more satisfactory practice of dealing with stakeholders in their business.