Aged care advocate Lynda Saltarelli from Aged Care Crisis said it was common practice in some private nursing homes to cut staff,who often work on the minimum wage,in order tomaximise profits for the nursing home proprietors. The Commonwealth Aged Care Actdoes not mandate a minimum level of staffing or skills.
Family members of residents at Epping Gardens,which costs residents up to $650,000 in a refundable deposit for a place plus a daily fee,have slammed the home for the treatment of their loved ones both before and during the coronavirus crisis.
Sue Cashman,the daughter of 95-year-old resident Peggy Shallcross,said shortly before the epidemic broke out her mother was yelled at so badly by one staff member that she had retreated to her room and"vomited violently".
"She rang me and she was in tears. A 95-year-old woman in tears,"Ms Cashman said. Her complaint to the manager went unanswered.
Ms Shallcross has survived the COVID-19 epidemic at the home and is one of just 22 residents who remain living there under the care of the emergency workforce. Ms Cashman said as soon as she could arrange it her mother,who had only been in Epping Gardens for a few weeks,would be returning to her home in a retirement village.
"She's a damn sight safer there than she is in a nursing home,"Ms Cashman said.
Tom Hyatt's mother,Thelma,died last Tuesday but lay in the home for 26 hours as he tried to make arrangements to pick up her body. Mr Hyatt said a staff member at the home told him repeatedly that his mother's body was"deteriorating"in a body bag and he had to come immediately,but then the home did not answer the phone to a funeral director. The staff member has since offered a"half-hearted"apology while denying aspects of his recollection,Mr Hyatt said.
"I'm just gutted. It's something that's not going to go away. There's some things you can forget and forgive ... but it's not going to go away,"he toldThe Age andThe Sydney Morning Herald.
Mr Hyatt said that before the epidemic,his sister had often come to the brand new Epping facility at 10am to visit and found their mother unwashed and undressed,so she did it herself.
"She didn't mind doing it,but I did wonder if my sister hadn't done it,would she have been washed?"
A third relative,Connie Tropea,told Nine News that before the COVID-19 outbreak she had been forced to bathe and change her father and help other residents because the home was so short-staffed.
The owners of Heritage Botany and Epping Gardens have made millions out of aged care.
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Peter Arvanitis,who joined Heritage Care in January,2019,was the founder and one-time director of listed for-profit nursing home giant Estia. He sold his shareholding in 2016 for $55 million and quit the company after it hit trouble. In 2018 he also sold a shopping centre he owned and a thoroughbred horse breeding farm,netting another $21 million.
In May his wife,the Maserati-driving Areti Arvanitis,sold the family's Toorak mansion for an undisclosed sum.Equipped with both indoor and outdoor swimming pools the house had a price guide of $12.95 million. After they bought and redecorated a new"palatial"Toorak mansion,with its own chef,the couple was described by their interior designer as"two bons vivants in beautiful dress".
The new house wasfeatured inVogue Living as boasting"Gucci in almost every room". A"digitally collaged tableau"on one wall told of"the gluttonous trappings of wealth within a classical framework". Ms Arvanitis's bedroom was described as a"a first-floor boudoir that is off-the-charts big,fitted with banks of Gucci-filled cabinets and furnished with one-of-a-kind art and objects commissioned by the Italian fashion house in esteem of her patronage".
The founder and co-owner of Heritage Care,Tony Antonopoulos,lives in a mansion in eastern suburban Canterbury which his wife bought in 2015 for $10.5 million. He founded the company in 2002,and has since described it as being"like a living being,a plant or flower".
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Neither Mr Arvanitis nor Mr Antonopoulos,nor any executive from the company could be contacted for comment. A receptionist toldThe Age andThe Sydney Morning Herald that:"They don't want to be contacted. All I can tell you is they are not saying anything."
Advocate Ms Saltarelli said reforms introduced by the Gillard government in 2013,called Living Longer Living Better had"led to a greater commercialisation of the sector,yet there seems to be little or no political appetite to address these and other policies which have been unravelling for two decades".
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