Bolton Clarke

Terrible for people who are high-needs residents. McKenzie owned the Buderim Views facility before Bolton Clarke, and it was no better. Our loved one had to go into care after suffering a stroke, leaving them paralysed on one side of their body. They have been abused verbally, and on a couple of occasions, physically picked up off the floor, when they had rolled themselves off the bed due to discomfort from not being moved or adjusted, and thrown back on the bed. Investigations failed to find out who did it, despite the fact that by law they should know who is working where and when. Both care providers have never had people who seem to know how to treat people with permanent disabilities, and polite requests and demonstrations are received and ignored. Our loved one is subjected to pain every time they roll or hoist them during care. As our loved one says: "I'm just treated like a side of beef. At present, they employ many staff whose English language level is too low, resulting in difficulties for English speaking staff and residents, and for the poor people themselves. It is not good or fair for anyone. Interactions suggest that many of them don't have enough English to do a Cert III in Individual Support (Aging). I witnessed a Native Speaker employee ask a food service worker to "wait there one minute, please, I'll bring the food trolley out now". The worker walked off. Obviously didn't understand the word "Wait", let alone the rest of the sentence. (Hardly high-level English!) I could write another full page of examples of communication problems. It is so dangerous for all concerned, including the staff with English language difficulties.

Yesterday, while on the phone to a family member, whom our loved one had rung because they couldn't get anyone to move them from the lounge where they had been dumped, back to their room so they could at least watch what they wanted to watch on TV, our family member heard a carer (presumably) say loudly and rudely, "WHAT?" (as in "What now? / What do you want?). Then they turned and walked away without responding. Other so called "carers" have told our loved one that "Your family have left you here to die", "Can't you do anything for yourself! I could put in many more nasty comments. Talk about a total lack of empathy, sympathy, or common human decency.

Many of the staff blame a half paralysed person for everything: losing lower dentures, falling out of bed, requesting pad changes or repositioning. Don't get me wrong, there are, and have been some lovely people working there, but it appears that a larger percentage are not fit to be in the industry. We know from several years of dealing with this, that some of these people pretend when residents' family are there, but show their true colours when they think they are unobserved. As mentioned above, we have heard some distressing exchanges when the 'lack of care' person doesn't realise the phone can pick up every word they say. I just read another review about Buderim Views having allowed "a cult" member being employed by Bolton Clarke just recently. I think we encountered them at a meeting with the then Manager, and the Clinical Care Manager - must have been one or the other of them. The Manager has since been replaced. My partner ended up walking out of the meeting because they were telling us that our loved one had been waving their paralysed arm (no movement since the stroke) around due to the fact that they had been praying with them. Very DISTURBING! Proved that many of the staff have no medically based knowledge/common sense/intelligence, and/or take little to no notice of doctors/hospitals. So, after several years, constant advocacy on our loved one's behalf, we have NO confidence in the Aged Care System, the providers they allow to advertise, take in, mistreat and neglect high-care needs residents. Advocacy directly with the providers achieves NOTHING. We wish we could euthanize our loved one, as they repeatedly request. I have had to help a few residents in the same position as our loved one - when I have heard them crying out "Nurse, nurse, someone", and no-one has come within 15-20 minutes. Often the call bell is not put where it can be reached, and then the person is blamed for falling out of their bed or chair when trying to reach it. Same with providing them with drinks, or TV remotes, or their phones. Hygiene is abysmal for these people, long term UTI problems, constipation being left until hospitalisation is necessary, because these people are just too much trouble. Oue loved one will probably die of sepsis because the hospital said they could see repeated bouts (true) and now the bowel leaks into the stomach area. HOWEVER, aged care providers get more money for high-needs residents. It just doesn't get spent on caring for THEM. The place might be ok if you are mobile, but not for high needs patients, and goodness only knows what happens in the dementia wing. Our loved one has also had dementia patients wander into their room and take their blanket, and we suspect other things as well. Nothing negative can ever be proven, of course. We just want to cry every time we go in, and more so after we've visited. Apparently, this is common across many facilities, which is why you hesitate to move people, apart from distance. Either the management don't care about the residents, or they are totally ignorant of what their staff get up to. It appears many of the staff need retraining, further training, some need English language assistance, and some of the others are just plain, nasty, individuals who should not be allowed to work with vulnerable people. I am hesitating to even post this review, in case, as has happened in the past, the staff members who shouldn't be working with vulnerable people take it out on the resident. Despite the privacy issues for our loved one, we wish we had cameras in the room - at least we could have identified the non-humans who have NO COMPASSION. We ALL need to advocate for our loved ones, and all the other people in the same or similar positions. There are too many incidents of bad behaviours, neglect and abuse 'falling through the cracks' in our systems. I just want to add that our sincere, heartfelt thanks go to the great staff who do try to do their best for the people they care for. It must be distressing for those great staff members to know they have a few colleagues in their midst who don't have the right attitudes and character to be around vulnerable people. The 'bad' people leave a taint on the 'good'. This relates to the elderly, disabled or children. How many stories of abuse, neglect and sexual misconduct do we all hear? We all know these things have always happened, but we seem to be in a period where too many people have lost their 'humanity', and despite all the Royal Commissions and the establishment of 'watchdog' entities, we now hear about it on an almost daily basis. Our health, education, childcare, aged care and disability care systems all seem to have become too big and driven by profit and are now ineffective and expensive without improving. I don't have the answer, but it seems that our politicians don't either. People's faith in these systems appears, rightly, to be at an all-time low. Financial profit creates a triangle between the providers, the workers and the residents/care recipients that only benefits 'the business'. We are told that we live in a country with one of the highest standards of living in the world, but we also know that we have massive problems with homelessness, providing healthcare, social welfare, etc., and that leaves many of us wondering where the revenue from our high levels of taxation is being spent.

After requesting social service only for a loved one but there was a lack of attention to detail. I thought it would be a good thing but I made the biggest mistake of my life putting the trust in Bolton Clake who have failed me, my love one and the community at large sending a person that’s part of a cult luring in the vulnerable, and when I asked about the person before proceeding case manager could only provide a name not bothering herself to look at profiles and can only assume part of the same cult later finding out was fired from another provider for misconduct and re-employed by Bolton Clarke, it seems that Bolton Clarke does not have any governance framework in place to ensure the safety of their clients also noting this person was not vaccinated which is mandatory in the totally broken health care sector.

The Health and Safety Commission are acting in shutting providers and banning care workers, and I think Bolton Clarke should be next in line, but it’s too little too late as I’m sick to the core of this revolting experience.

The purpose of this review is to warn others that are thinking of getting services to think again since there are no checks in place leaving clients to find out why.