The Australian: Gary Hughes

TWO elderly residents of a Melbourne nursing home where four people have already died of suspected food poisoning were yesterday admitted to hospital, one man at the insistence of relatives concerned not enough was being done.

The 84-year-old resident's son said the family was told only on Saturday that people had died at the home, following the suspected salmonella outbreak over Easter.

The son, who wished to be identified only as David, said the family arrived at Broughton Hall nursing home yesterday to find his father very ill. An ambulance was called after the family told staff they wanted him sent to hospital.

"He should have been hospitalised earlier," David said last night. "He's in hospital now and being treated for dehydration."

The two residents were earlier being treated at the nursing home for gastroenteritis, which they developed late last week. Two more residents were already in hospital, where one tested positive for salmonella poisoning.

Medical files on the four dead residents will be handed to the Victorian Coroner today and post-mortem examinations will be carried out to establish the causes of death.

Broughton Hall's executive manager, Sharon McGowan, said the nursing home took full responsibility for a four-day delay in alerting Victorian health officials to the outbreak.

Staff at the upmarket home in the eastern Melbourne suburb of Camberwell decided not to telephone a Health Department emergency number on Good Friday, April 6, after failing to get an answer on the main switchboard because it was a public holiday.

They finally alerted the department's public health branch on Tuesday, but did not tell officials that two residents had died over that weekend. The department was finally told about the first deaths on Wednesday.

Victoria's Health Minister Bronwyn Pike yesterday sacked the state's top public health officer, partly because she was not told about the deaths until Saturday.

Ms McGowan said a total of 21 high-care residents had displayed symptoms of gastroenteritis. Broughton Hall, which is operated by the Anglican church, has 30 high-care nursing home beds and 50 low-care hostel beds.

The outbreak, which was first thought to be viral gastroenteritis, had been confined to the high-care residents, even though the same kitchen had provided meals to the nursing home and the hostel.
Ms McGowan said the kitchen had been closed and food was being brought in from outside until the source of the infection was identified. No new residents were being admitted.

"We recognise now that it was our responsibility to ensure the department knew of the outbreak and we should have contacted their emergency number over the Easter weekend," she said. "The department are not to blame."

Ms McGowan said staff did not initially tell the department about the first two deaths over Easter because "they were not unexpected as both residents were elderly and frail and we did not connect them with the gastro outbreak at the time".

Ms McGowan said every effort had been made to keep residents and their relatives informed about the outbreak and the deaths.

"The outbreak appears to be under control," she said. "We've had no new cases for three days."

Ms Pike said the health department's public health branch had done everything necessary to ensure the outbreak was contained and the source identified once it had been alerted to the problem.

The Health Services Union called on the federal and state governments to introduce mandatory reporting of serious illness outbreaks in aged care facilities.

"It is outrageous that management at the home reportedly did not pick up the phone and call the relevant emergency number when quite clearly there was a desperate need to do so," the union's assistant state secretary Shaun Hudson said.

"What this case clearly shows is that when provided with the choice to report serious illness, unscrupulous or ignorant aged care facilities won't."