Jeta Gardens aged care resident Chan Kai Let only received her first COVID-19 shot the day Queensland's borders reopened to interstate hotspots in December — months after her family was wrongly told she had been vaccinated and as the Omicron wave was beginning its deadly march into the state.
The 86-year-old's devoted daughter Rebecca Chong said she signed papers allowing her mother, who has dementia, to receive her COVID vaccinations in March last year.
"They didn't give it to her, but … everyone told me she'd been given her vaccine," Mrs Chong said.
In August, when Mrs Chong asked to see a record of her mother's COVID-19 vaccinations, the aged care facility then informed her Mrs Chan had not yet received her first jab.
"I said: 'Whoa, how can that be?' That is ridiculous," Mrs Chong said.
"They then told us: 'We'll make sure we give it to her in September but nothing was done until December 13'."
Ms Chan received her second shot in January before becoming one of 100 Jeta Gardens residents and 82 staff members to test positive to COVID-19 in the biggest and deadliest outbreak of the virus in a Queensland aged care facility.
Fifteen of the residents have died with COVID-19 during the outbreak. They are among 151 Queensland COVID-19 aged care deaths — more than half the state's total of 296.
Chief Health Officer John Gerrard has expressed concerns about the large numbers of people dying with COVID-19 who have not received a booster shot.
Of the 19 deaths recorded yesterday, including 10 aged care residents, Dr Gerrard said only one had received a booster.
Nine of the people who died were unvaccinated, one had received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and eight two doses.
'Cracks in the walls' exposed in deadly outbreak
Mrs Chong said her mother was, fortunately, doing well after her COVID diagnosis.
But she said the Jeta Gardens outbreak had exposed "cracks in the wall" of the nursing home that needed fixing.
The aged care facility is the subject of an Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission non-compliance notice after an audit last year found deficiencies in its COVID-19 outbreak management plan and staffing issues.
Last week, the commission identified Jeta Gardens residents were at "immediate and severe risk", calling on the nursing home to employ an adviser and to provide training to staff in best practice infection prevention and control.
Mrs Chong said she had been happy with Jeta Gardens until about two years ago when new management assumed control of the nursing home.
The aged care facility is 57 per cent owned by KPJ Healthcare Malaysia.
"There are nurses, there are carers, there are people who I know personally and they say: 'We want to do a good job,'" she said.
"But the management should be supporting them."
Mrs Chong said residents' incontinence pads were not changed frequently enough, causing the aged care facility to smell.
"It's important for people with dementia to have social interaction and emotional support, people coming in to spend time with them," she said.
"But because of COVID this has been taken away, or reduced, and for the holistic health of residents this needs to be reinstated.
"They have little recreation and they need regular music, games and assisted walks outside for the good of their mental health."
Speaking on behalf of a block of 43 per cent minority shareholders, Jeta Gardens' founder Choe Lam Tan said they had not been officially informed of the COVID-19 outbreak engulfing the aged care facility or the non-compliance notice, learning about the crisis in the media and on the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission website.
"We would like to assure the public that we will seek answers, accountability and possible solutions to achieve better outcomes for all being affected," Mr Tan said.
"Our deepest condolences to the deceased families. We are completely devastated and heartbroken."
Mr Tan said he was forced to step down as Jeta Gardens managing director in October 2019.
'Tens of thousands' in aged care without vaccines
Queensland Nurses and Midwives' Union secretary Beth Mohle said aged care residents were meant to have been prioritised as part of the COVID-19 vaccination rollout.
"There are tens of thousands who haven't got their vaccines," Ms Mohle said.
In a statement last night, Jeta Gardens said the aged care facility had identified no new cases of COVID-19 since January 29.
"Our processes have been developed since the outbreak and while this was the first real-time they were implemented, like all systems and processes we are adopting a continuous quality improvement approach … to further strengthen our systems," the statement said.
"We understand the impact on families and further dedicated communication lines are being put in place.
"Families will be advised tomorrow of a dedicated hotline and email address that will be staffed seven days a week."
In a statement, Jeta Gardens said the "surge workforce" that had assisted the facility at the height of the outbreak was no longer needed on site.
'No one deserves to die alone'
It comes as the federal government announced it would deploy ADF personnel to aged care homes to assist with staffing, medical care and infection control.
Geoff Rowe from Aged and Disability Advocacy Australia told ABC Radio Brisbane the decision could be too little, too late.
"The COVID outbreak has been impacting Queensland really since Christmas, and more broadly across Australia now for many, many months," he said.
"It's one of a range of solutions government and providers need to look at but it's not a silver bullet."
Mr Rowe said for many aged care residents, the appearance of the ADF could be distressing.
"One of my concerns, and I don't hear it being talked about, but for many older Australians, particularly those from a migrant background, the military isn't always a friendly face, their childhood experiences that they remember have been quite traumatic," he said.
"So I think government needs to be very careful about how they market bringing in the ADF.
"I don't think they need to say 'we're bringing the ADF to residents', I don't think the ADF needs to be there and in uniform, it will just create an additional trauma to what we're seeing already."
Mr Rowe said there had been a failure from authorities to roll out enough third vaccine doses to aged care homes.
"We all know that people die in aged care. But no one deserves to die in the way that some of the COVID deaths are happening," he said.
"No-one deserves to die alone and part of what I believe we're seeing with the deaths in aged care is a result of the failure of the booster program."
