A Victorian regulator elected not to punish a disability home for failing to afford a 65-year-old woman dignity because her death meant she was “no longer” legally a “resident”, an inquiry has been told.
The disability royal commission, which is examining housing and homelessness issues this week, has spent the past two days investigating the troubled supported residential services (SRS) system.
About 30% of SRS residents are also national disability insurance scheme (NDIS) participants, but the sector is regulated by state authorities that have been criticised as “reactive”.
Georgia Wilson told the royal commission her mother died at a Melbourne SRS facility on 13 April 2020, only a few months after moving in.
Kaye Wilson had a mental health condition and was living with 27 other people in the facility, which was not named in the hearing.
Georgia Wilson told the inquiry that when she entered the facility to formally identify her mother, she was lying on concrete outside the dining room in a communal area, covered by a tarpaulin.
Wilson said she had been told by police that paramedics had moved her mother from a couch to the floor to revive her, and when CPR failed they determined she had died of natural causes.
Paramedic reports obtained by Wilson months later contradicted some of that version of events, the inquiry heard.
These reports “stated that my mother was sitting on the ground, not on the couch [and she was] deceased for two and a half hours before they arrived,” Wilson said.
“And her [cause of] death could not be determined because of the amount of time she was lying there, so she needed to go to a coroner. I was told she didn’t [need to be referred to the coroner].”
Under questioning, director of the human services regulator at Victoria’s department of health and human services, Anthony Kolmus, said investigators wanted to issue a compliance notice to the SRS for the way it treated Kaye Wilson upon her death.
But they determined the SRS facility had not breached the legislation.
The chair of the disability royal commission, Ronald Sackville, noted the relevant law included the “right to … dignity and respect” for residents.
“The view we formed was that the fact that the person was deceased technically meant they were no longer a resident,” Kolmus said.
Sackville noted there might be some dispute over that interpretation of the law.
Kolmus said the regulator could have “done better” in dealing with Wilson’s complaint and he understood her “level of distress”.
He also conceded the department was “less proactive” than he’d like but felt it was still effective as regulator.
The department has not issued an infringement notice against a provider since at least 2019, and possibly since 2010, the inquiry heard.
It heard claims of abuse, neglect and fraud in SRS homes and the potential of confusion between state watchdogs and the NDIS commission, which oversees NDIS providers.
There was no requirement for SRS providers to be registered, meaning they did not necessarily need to report serious incidents to the NDIS commission.
It was also alleged some facilities had been “double-dipping” – claiming residents’ NDIS funding and charging for the same service from fees taken from their disability pension.
Wilson said her mother was charged $490 a week – her entire disability pension – and that the SRS manager had also asked for the details of her NDIS plan.
Her mother was a vegetarian and was regularly served only an egg on toast for dinner.
It was in contrast to the picture painted by the manager when her mother moved in, the inquiry heard.
Wilson said she had been told her mother would have all her daily needs catered for, including “medical care, appointments with the GP who would visit the SRS twice a week and assistance with self-care”.
Wilson later learned from the funeral home that her mother’s body had been physically dirty, with tattered clothes, two socks on one foot, a hole in the bottom of her shoe and wet feet.
And she was told by a doctor that her mother had stopped taking her medication, contradicting the manager of the SRS.
Wilson said her mother had been treated “as a number and a pay cheque”.
The department of health and human services finalised its investigation into the SRS one year after Kaye Wilson’s death.
Wilson said she had not received an apology and the department did not respond to her requests for further meetings.
The inquiry continues.
