1. What are the legal and ethical issues associated with the case
2. Do you think the facility manager conducted himself ethically throughout the process?
3. Why do you think it is recurring problem in facilities across Australia despite revelation from various platforms including media?

Sarah Holland-Batt: ‘My Father’s Story in Aged Care’

1. What are the legal and ethical issues associated with the case?
2. Do you think the facility manager conducted himself ethically throughout the process?
3. Why do you think it is recurring problem in facilities across Australia despite revelation from various platforms including media?

Australia’s deteriorating aged care sector findings of the
Aged Care Royal Commission related to issues of
negligence

Contents

1. Criminal Law with Shilvi
2. Civil Law with Divya
3. Negligence with Ailish
4. Case Study with Victoria
5. Break Out Questions with Sash
6. Break Out Reflection with Rai, Sarabjit, Mandeep
7. Reflection with Shikha
8. References

Criminal law

●A system of laws concerned with punishment of individuals
who commit crimes     against the state.
●Aimed at protecting society as a whole.
●Proceedings are instigated by the prosecution.
●Criminal Act code is legislated by each state and territory.
●Criminal Act code is known as Crimes Act 1958 in Victoria.
●If defendant pleads not guilty then only hearing takes place.
Otherwise, court determines the punishment.
●The state has to prove the crime beyond reasonable doubt.
●Homicide, murder and manslaughter are types of criminal
law defence.

Summarise civil:
 A system of law concern with responsibilities and Rights
of people towards each other and  reparation for injuries
to individual.
 It  address the  several area but the main is tort law.
 It aimed to protect an individual and provide
compensation.
 Legislation – The Wrong Act- 1958
o Purpose –  To compensate 
o Initiated by a person who suffers the harm
o Plaintiff
o Defendant
o Plaintiff has to prove their case only on balance of
probabilities(>51%)
o If found liable defendant has to compensate
plaintiff.

Case study summary –
‘My Father’s Story in Aged Care’. Australia’s deteriorating
aged care sector findings of the Aged Care Royal Commission
related to issue of negligence. That was the powerful message
from aged care reform advocate Sarah Holland-Batt as she
shared her father’s shocking experience in the system with
delegates at the Australian Nursing and Midwifery
Federation’s (ANMF) 14 th  Biennial National Conference in
Melbourne
this month telling a story of her father, who was diagnosed
with Parkinson’s disease in 2000 and has lived in a Gold

Coast aged care home since 2015. Diagnosed with
Parkinson’s at the age of 64year old.
His experience had been plagued by appalling suffering,
unnecessary injuries, neglect and deliberate abuse from a
carer, medication administration errors; her father’s
Parkinson’s medication Madopar, to aid mobility and
walking. Her father was mistakenly prescribed medication
that completely negated the effects of the Madopar. The error
wasn’t picked up for five months. Then client fell because
there was no one there to take him to the toilet and he tried to
take himself. He broke his hip and then he was rushed to
hospital and given an emergency hip replacement that the
doctors and the hospital reported was likely [to mean] he
would never walk again. It turns out they were right.
Confined to a wheelchair, Associate Professor Holland-Batt’s
father returned to the aged care home and the cluster of
problems continued. One morning, while being wheeled into
breakfast, a tennis ball sized infection was discovered on his
elbow and he was rushed to hospital, with doctors expressing
their alarm at how it had gone unnoticed for so long.
Amid the questioning, a whistleblowing nurse reported that
client had pushed client’s wheelchair away from his bed so he
couldn’t get out of bed. She had taunted him verbally and said
she was sick of this shit and that he should get his own
nappies and they were out in the hall knowing that he couldn’t
go and get them.” Despite demands for answers from the
facility about the infection and overall lack of care, expecting
the facility would act
swiftly reaching out to numerous parties for help, including
the police, elder abuse authorities and the former Aged Care
Complaints Commission, without avail. Eventually, Associate
Professor Holland-Batt and her mother convinced the whistle-
blower to go on the record, to trigger change. The abuser was

fired from Dad’s facility but because there’s no regulation of
personal care workers (PCWs) she is likely still in the system
which is
another thought that haunts