Residents moved from two Victorian care centres as coronavirus death toll climbs

Daniel Andrews provides an update on coronavirus cases in aged care centres.

Residents have been moved from two Melbourne care facilities after separate coronavirus outbreaks.

Seven residents at the Doutta Galla aged care centre in Yarraville, in Melbourne’s west, have died since an outbreak began there 16 days ago.

On Sunday, Federal Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck said containing the virus’s spread at the centre was a “top priority”.

He said an Australian Medical Assistance Team and a clinical first-responder nurse had been deployed to the centre.

And Doutta Galla chief executive officer Vanda Iaconese said 17 patients who had tested negative to coronavirus were moved to hospital early last week to protect them.

She said 23 residents who had tested positive to COVID-19 were being treated at the centre, while another five were moved to hospital for further treatment.

Ms Iaconese said a number of staff members had tested positive and were quarantining at home.

“Consequently, there was a rapid transition to external agency and other specialist nursing and aged care staff, which was naturally disruptive to our residents,” she said.

She said there had been no new cases over the weekend.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said the decision to move residents was not taken lightly.

“The only consideration when it comes to moving residents or not is their clinical need and clinical circumstances,” he said.

“It’s not just about moving entire nursing homes out of a familiar environment into an unfamiliar one, it’s also about sending very significant numbers of staff, nurses, hospital nurses, and personal care workers into aged care facilities.”

Mental health centre residents moved

Meanwhile, Victoria’s Minister for Mental Health, Martin Foley, said more than 17 residents at a mental health accommodation facility in Melbourne’s inner south were being moved due to a COVID-19 outbreak.

He said he was treating the infections at Hambleton House in Albert Park as his “first priority”, with police, paramedics and other health officers onsite to help with the relocation.

Victoria recorded 16 more deaths from coronavirus in the latest 24-hour reporting period.

Eleven of those died were aged care residents.

Mr Andrews said of the 7,671 active cases across the state, government experts estimated 2,075 were in aged care.

On Sunday Federal Labor frontbencher Bill Shorten blamed Victoria’s aged care “disaster” on both the Federal Government and private providers.

The former Labor leader called for an overhaul of responsibility for the sector during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We should be pursuing the royal commissioner’s suggestion of a national pandemic aged care co-ordinating authority,” he said on ABC’s Insiders program.

“The [Federal] Government has set up a response unit in Victoria, which is good as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough.

“If you set up a royal commission and the royal commissioner makes a direct intervention, why are we second guessing it?”

He also questioned the role of privately owned aged care centres, suggesting some were struggling to “serve two masters” as they sought to make a profit and care for vulnerable people.

“We need to put people before profit,” he said.

abc