Bashings, abuse in Kepnock Grove aged care home

By Hedley Thomas
Australian
February 16, 2015

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/bashings-abuse-in-kepnock-grove-aged-care-home/story-e6frgczx-1227220721055

RESIDENTS at a large aged-care home have been bashed, abused, starved and stripped of pain-relief morphine patches in a culture of neglect and concealment, insiders say.

Relatives and serving and former staff — several of whom were involved in a confidential internal probe — have provided alarming evidence of abuse and neglect at the Baptist-run Kepnock Grove home for the elderly in the ­regional town of Bundaberg, about 400km north of Brisbane.

The Australian has obtained key documents, including confid­ential legal advice, and interviewed insiders about standards of care, injuries and several deaths. They say there has been an attempt­ed cover-up since an initial low-key internal probe uncovered shocking cases at the home and suspicious deaths.

The claims of a cover-up have been rejected by Jon Campbell, the chief executive of Baptist Community Services (known as Carin­ity), who instructed solicitors to make a Supreme Court applic­ation for an injunction on Friday night, preventing The Weekend Australian from publishing its art­icles on Saturday.

But Mr Campbell has since ­acknowledged serious problems at the home and said he was “deeply sorry” about the standard of care. The statement said he “strongly rejects the claim of deaths attribut­able to bashings”. ...

The church-owned group adopted a strategy to cover up the problems and manage fallout from any leaks to the media or regulators, according to insiders. The Australian has obtained “strictly confidential” internal documents of public relations messaging for executives to play down the home’s troubles to journalists.

The three-page legal advice ­received by Mr Campbell two months ago describes “a signif­icant number of very serious alleg­ations about mistreatment and mismanagement of both residents and staff”, and warns of “very serious compliance, liability and reputational risks”.