A south-west Sydney nursing home is battling a major Covid outbreak with families now questioning the timing of booster shots and why positive cases were kept in close quarters with uninfected residents.
One fully vaccinated resident who was receiving palliative care has died, and 63 more people – 38 residents and 25 care staff – have tested positive to Covid at the Bupa aged care home at Clemton Park. It’s a sharp increase since the facility activated its outbreak management plan on 21 December after a staff member tested positive.
Bupa closed the 144-bed facility to all visitors at this point, however cases have steadily risen, and have since spread between the home’s separate “communities” on different floors of the complex.
On Tuesday, families of residents were notified by email that a resident receiving palliative care, who had contracted Covid, had died.
Residents had been scheduled to receive their Covid-19 booster doses on 10 January, after having received their initial two doses in April and May.
Management has now brought forward booster vaccinations for residents, with 31 of the 140 residents receiving the dose on Tuesday and others scheduled for this Friday.
Dimitrios Kapeleris is furious at how Bupa has cared for his father, Theofanis, who has tested positive.
After first learning of the Covid outbreak, Dimitrios pleaded with management to evacuate all Covid positive patients from the facility, to “avert a disaster of the likes of Newmarch House and St Basil’s”.
He was worried about his father’s wellbeing and chance of surviving Covid.
He was also concerned about the potential for aerosol transmission within the facility when doors were opened by staff. In Facetime video calls with his father during the outbreak, Dimitrios claims he could see staff leave the door to his room open for several minutes as they came in to clean up.
The 84-year-old suffers diabetes and has advanced dementia, and his son had already taken the precaution of taking his father to a private clinic to get his booster shot in early December (before the outbreak began), unsatisfied with the idea of leaving it until January when the rest of the home would receive it.
Dimitrios claimed his request to separate positive cases was turned down. He is also critical of how Bupa communicated news about the outbreak to families.
“They’re in damage control, it’s all about PR … Only now after complaining are they holding a meeting with the families and sending regular emails and, but they’re still leaving out details,” he said.
“I was trying to prevent my dad from getting infected. And lo and behold, he got infected.
“He’s holding up OK. But he’s scared, and I’m concerned if he deteriorates. I’m just hoping he pulls through.”
Staff are checking in on Covid positive residents, in addition to twice daily clinical observations, but Dimitrios said that should be more frequent and he wanted his father to be moved to a hospital or other care facility.
“This is going to be an unmitigated disaster,” he said.
At a crisis meeting with families held on Wednesday afternoon, several families raised concerns about the psychological state of their parents with dementia.
A spokesperson for Bupa said that most residents were “clinically stable with only mild symptoms”.
“In order to keep relatives abreast of the situation, text messages and email updates are being sent on a daily basis,” they said.
The spokesperson added: “The health and safety of our residents and team members is paramount so we acted quickly to control any potential spread of Covid-19. This included closing the home to all visitors, using rapid antigen tests on all residents and members, full PPE for team members including face shields, and a deep cleaning of the home.”
They also said the facility is “cohorting our team members to single communities”, and that additional agency staff have been brought in.
Additionally, the spokesperson said that residents were “remaining within their own communities within the home to minimise movement in the building with team members dedicated to each community so they don’t work in other areas”.
The spokesperson also refuted Dimitrios’ suggestion communication was not initially regular. They also said that a public health audit “confirmed that aerosol transmission via mixing of air from different areas of the home was not a contributing factor to Covid spreading at Clemton”.
Of the 140 residents in the facility, 118 are double vaccinated.
Regarding the timing of booster shots, the spokesperson said: “During the past few weeks, our home had contacted Health Care Australia a number of times to follow up booking dates for the booster program and were advised that 10 January was the only date that had been allocated”.
A department of health spokesperson said that commonwealth vaccine providers have been asked to schedule a visit for all eligible residential aged care facilities by the end of January, and that it had so far contacted all facilities to schedule booster shots.
“Scheduling and timing is managed between vaccine providers and facilities to ensure clinics are held at a time suitable to the facility and their residents – there has been a focus on booster clinics where there is a higher risk of outbreaks due to community transmission.”
“Booster clinics are being delivered by commonwealth vaccine providers, primary care providers and, where eligible, facilities can self-manage an onsite clinic,” the department spokesperson said.
Dimitrios said he believed the policy of keeping residents in their own quarters had failed.
“We had been advised that they were sealed off from each other. Then how did my dad get it when the first case was in another community (section)?”
Dimitrios said his father was “one of the few” who had had a booster dose, and that family of other residents who were unboosted remain concerned.
“They are petrified,” he said.
