Dear Mark Scott, I have grave concerns about your ABC

[Opinion] This letter has been sent to the ABC’s managing director, Mark Scott, by the author, Chris Baynes.

Dear Mr Scott,

I am writing to you as the managing director of the ABC to query why the ABC has again resorted to sensationalist news programming, attacking the aged care and retirement village sectors. Over the past four weeks Lateline, AM and the 7.30 Report (twice) have each added to a history of damaging and one sided programs.

I raise this with you in the context of your speech last Friday at the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne where you said we can rely on the ABC to deliver objective news with integrity:

“…maintaining the independence and integrity of the Corporation is a key duty of the ABC Board, as is ensuring that the gathering and presentation by the Corporation of news and information is accurate and impartial according to the recognised standards of objective journalism”.

You offered that it was this integrity that makes the ABC our vital piece of public infrastructure:

“… an investment in the ABC is a sure bet in vital national infrastructure – an independent, broad, comprehensive, local, national and international news service”.

As a keen observer of the media I can only agree.

So how and why does extremely one sided and factually wrong attacks on the residential aged care sector occur – and keep occurring?

Consider last Thursday’s 7.30 Report (8 October). Its online title was “SHUT OUT – Imagine not being able to comfort a parent during their final days”.

The story asserted that ‘threatening’, intimidating’ and ‘bullying’ treatment of families of aged care residents is widespread. Three people were interviewed in the 7 minute, 18 second-long segment. They each supported the bullying assertion but no balancing opinion or comment from the sector was attempted or given lip service.

The voiceover did state that the Minister for Health had been approached for comment and had responded with a simple statement that an independent Complaints Commissioner was due to be appointed in January. A tacit confirmation that there is a problem.

What’s the real problem?

But is there really as widespread a problem as your reports suggests? Or is the problem more an imbalance in the people selected to discuss the problem on air?

Consider the first interviewee – who incidentally experienced her problems in 2006 or nine years ago. Her assertion was that she placed her mother in a Perth aged care facility and after twelve months of her complaints the management had ‘banned’ her from the home and had sent her threatening and intimidating’ letters.

She moved her mother to another home and then she, the daughter, was subsequently banned from that second facility. She had to negotiate ‘three one hour visits per week’. Her mother subsequently passed away, without her daughter being able to comfort her, the report said.

Surely, the question has to be asked: how is it that this immediate relative – a daughter – was banned not once but twice in quick succession from two separate facilities (that she herself selected)? Not being with her dying mother is extraordinary; why didn’t the report explain why the daughter could not be present. What was it about her behaviour that required her visits to be limited?

The second interview was with Rodney Lewis. He was described as an ‘elder law expert’. In fact that is his business: elderlaw.com.au. He supported the reporter’s statement that ‘140 (aged care facilities) failed to meet accreditation standards (last year)’ out of 2,700 and there are ‘about 3,500 complaints’ per year by stating,

“I think it’s fair to imagine that the reports are just the tip of the iceberg. When a family member, a close family member leaves the home after seeing their relative who’s a resident, they simply don’t have any way of knowing what’s going to happen to their relative”.

This is leaves so much up in the air.

Care facilities fail accreditation by not complying satisfactorily across several of 44 items. They include paperwork, hygiene, rosters and a myriad of other items. But not really bullying of resident families.

And 3,500 complaints? While every complaint deserves investigation, this is extremely small when considered against the 180,000 extremely frail people who are cared for up to death in our care facilities. This is an incredibly emotionally charged area that involves a considerable number of people including at times multiple children often in other parts of Australia or overseas.

3,500 complaints is 10 per day. Each year there are 65,700,000 resident days (365 days x 180,000 residents) where services are being delivered across 23 hours by over 120,000 staff that include, incidentally, the lowest paid in our economy.

The final interviewee was a daughter whose mother was a nine year resident of one care facility. The daughter was critical of the care delivered but has been bullied by staff because she had complained. She ‘won’t ‘go near the office now because I do not want to be bullied and harassed’.

The point to consider is that there is no requirement that her mother stay in that care home. Rather than subject her mother to poor care she could move her mother to another, more agreeable home. Surely that would be kinder to the mother than subjecting her to continued poor care?

Why didn’t the journalist ask these hard questions, rather than present another ‘horror’ aged care scenario?

Staff under pressure from families

Mr Scott, the other side of the coin is that nearly every care facility in Australia would have a recent case where the staff were being ‘threatened, bullied and intimidated’ by families of residents.

All families want the ‘best’ for their relatives and often what is perceived to be the ‘best’ is not always possible. For instance the family may want physiotherapy for their family every day but the care facility can’t provide it – financially or physically for a whole host of reasons. The family will label this poor care. And not infrequently a family member is guilt ridden for perhaps not supporting their parents and over compensate with demands on the care facility.

Staff take it on the chin in nearly all cases; it has to be extremely severe for management to take action because care workers understand the emotional and other pressures that are overlaying many care cases.

And residents themselves can be ‘threatening, bullying and intimidating’ to staff due to dementia, illness or depression.

As a result many staff get worn down and simply leave the system for an easier career.

And this is my end point. Demonising aged care as a whole sector makes easy television or radio but the cost is that it affects people that are, like the ABC, a public asset. If we turn off new staff joining the care or the retirement village sector, who is going to care for our senior Australians?

The people who work in aged care – the AINs (nursing assistants), the RNs (registered nurses), the management and other staff – expect and welcome scrutiny and accountability, like your ABC. They also expect and deserve the respect that comes out of balance and fairness. That is fair isn’t it?