The manager of the Glenara Lakes residential aged care home has been suspended while authorities investigate allegations of harassment.
Staff at the Southern Cross Care Tasmania home, in Youngtown, were informed their manager Glenn Barnes had been “suspended from duties, pending a full investigation into allegations of staff harassment and misconduct.”
“Southern Cross Care takes any reported incident of workplace harassment or misconduct very seriously,” the statement continued. A comprehensive independent investigation will be conducted, and additional support services have been implemented for all staff at Glenara Lakes Aged Care Home.”
ABC News reported staff also carried a vote of no-confidence over the management of the aged care home, with at least 12 reports of alleged harassment being filed.
Health and Community Services Union assistant secretary Robbie Moore said the complaints were of a serious nature.
“The complaints range in nature. The allegations are quite serious and have warranted the action that’s been taken today,” he said. “It’s taken staff some time to get the courage to make the allegations.”
Moore said union members were also concerned about staffing levels at Glenara Lakes, and that 30 employees had resigned in the past year.
“There’s some broad issues right across Southern Cross Care and all their sites, and certainly Glenara Lakes has been part of that where staff are not being backfilled, they’re working short-staffed,” Moore said.
The home has also been under considerable pressure in the past.
In 2019 the Royal Commission into Aged Care heard an Order of Australia recipient had allegedly been mistreated at the Glenara Lakes home, including mismanagement of medications, missed showers and being left in his own dried urine.
The home was also handed a non-compliance notice in early 2019 before the multiple resignations throughout 2020.
