A MAN who claims his father was assaulted in a Waterfall nursing home is calling on the state government to ensure more thorough investigations to prevent assaults on aged-care residents.
John Kopetko junior alleged his father John Kopetko senior, 95, was assaulted by another patient at Garrawarra Centre on many occasions and seriously injured on June 3.
Mr Kopetko snr, who has lived in the 120-bed dementia-specific centre since early this year, was taken to Sutherland Hospital last month with a suspected hip bone fracture and a black eye.
St George and Sutherland hospitals and health services director of operations Cath Whitehurst denied there was evidence of an assault and said Mr Kopetko snr was transferred to Sutherland Hospital following a ‘‘suspected fall’’.
‘‘South Eastern Sydney Local Health District, which Garrawarra Centre is a part of, takes allegations of abuse against staff and residents very seriously,’’ she said.
‘‘Mr Kopetko’s son reported a suspected assault on his father to Sutherland police.
‘‘Garrawarra Centre management co-operated with police and all information requested was supplied.
‘‘Garrawarra management investigated Mr Kopetko’s allegations and found no evidence of an alleged assault.’’
Mr Kopetko jnr said his claims were not investigated properly by senior staff.
"This care provider takes a top-down, do-nothing, management approach to dealing with physical assaults on residents," he said.
Sutherland police acting crime manager, Detective Inspector Belinda Abdy, said police would not pursue the matter.
The Department of Health and Ageing report on the operation of the Aged Care Act said there were 1971 notifications of reportable assaults between 2011 and 2012. Of those, 1627 were recorded as alleged or suspected unreasonable use of force, 309 as alleged or suspected unlawful sexual contact and 35 as both.
The report also states "the objective of the reportable assault policy is to help ensure that providers take action to protect the health, safety and well-being of aged-care recipients when an alleged assault occurs and that further risk to care recipients is minimised".
But Mr Kopetko jnr said Garrawarra Centre failed to take any measures to prevent a similar incident occurring.
"My father fears that he will be assaulted again and that staff will do nothing about it when he complains," he said.
Mr Kopetko jnr last month made a formal complaint to the Aged Care Complaints Scheme — a government body that allows people to raise their concerns about the quality of care or services subsidised by the federal government.
He was still waiting for a response and said there needed to be more transparency because the department was essentially investigating itself.
"I've completely lost trust in the system," he said.
"There needs to be greater in-depth investigations, possibly by an independent body."
Linda Sparrow, from Aged Care Crisis, said because the scheme received thousands of reports each year it was a slow process and difficult to monitor what steps an aged-care facility had made after a complaint.
"There's a conflict of interest, so it's never going to be any good," she said.
"These matters are best settled in the home itself and if they do go to the complaints scheme, then they should be solved expeditiously."
A Department of Health and Ageing spokeswoman said the Living Longer Living Better aged care reforms, which start August 1, would give increased powers to the Aged Care Commissioner to improve consumer and provider confidence.
"Under these new powers, the commissioner will be able to direct the scheme to undertake a new complaints-resolution process and take into account any matter identified by the commissioner as part of that process," she said.
"The scheme would be required to provide the commissioner with a copy of the draft findings following the resolution process and to take into account any further comments made by the commissioner.
"If the commissioner is dissatisfied with the response of the scheme, they will have the power to make a special report to the Minister for Mental Health and Ageing."
Mr Kopetko jnr is attempting to transfer his father from Garrawarra Centre to another aged-care centre.
COMPLAINTS TIMELINE
2009: The federal government engaged Associate Professor Merrilyn Walton to review the operation of the Complaints Investigation Scheme and identify areas of improvement.
April 2010: The federal government released the results of the review. The report, Review of the Aged Care Complaints Investigation Scheme (called the Walton Review), made recommendations to improve the operation, timeliness and transparency of the scheme.
The federal government commits $50.6 million over four years to improve the scheme’s capacity to respond to complaints about the government’s subsidised aged-care services.
2011: The Complaints Investigation Scheme renamed the Aged Care Complaints Scheme.
Reforms to the scheme will be implemented during 2013 and 2014.
Should alleged assaults in nursing homes be better investigated?
